We rented a car for tonight. Daniel is the driver and I'm the passenger. To the left, the forest opens up, and to the right, a rise of earth crowned by bushes. With the flashlight, I illuminated the rocky wall and made shapes with the shadow of my free hand: A dog; A goose; A dog again.
Iggy Pop's The Passenger plays on the radio. Daniel's gloved fingers tap the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song. Tonight he's wearing a sleeveless shirt. Exactly, there's a full moon, and the cobweb of scars on his arms shines in all its glory.
"Do you want to give her the special treatment, or are we making it quick and clean?"
"That's the fourth time you've asked me," I answered.
"I feel like a little kid with a new toy. Understand my excitement."
A pothole in the road makes us bounce, while a loud thud echoes from the trunk. I turned off the flashlight, left it between my legs, looked at Daniel and asked:
"Do you regret anything we've done?"
"Drinking? Doing drugs? Sex? Killing?" He glances at me out of the corner of his eye.
"Hm… Eating."
"Well, that gave me indigestion. Let's not do that so often, or let's try someone alive to see if they taste better." He returns his gaze to the road. "I'm content. Regretful? Never. Why the curiosity?"
"We hurt people."
"And so what? Do you care?"
"No." As simple as that.
"Then everything is fine. Come here."
Daniel wraps an arm around me and pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder. His scars feel rough against my cheek, but rather than bothering me, the sensation comforts me. His skin, the warmth, the heartbeat… It reminds me that we are alive.
I bring my mouth close, touching his neck with my lips. He laughs, telling me it tickles. I smile, but the smile vanishes when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the shadow of a car in the right mirror. When I blinked, the spectral vehicle vanished like an illusion.
For several days now, the veil of my reality has been cracking. I decided to let those mirages pass, paying no more attention to the phantom pursuer, nor to the vision of Jeff in the rearview mirror, occupying the space between the back seats. Despite my indifference, Jeff kept watching me; his black pupils enlarging and shrinking as if the water in his eyes were boiling.
"I'm going crazy," I muttered.
Daniel hears and bursts out laughing.
"We are despicable, Joshua. But crazy? Of course not. We are the most sane people on the planet. THE SEARCH brought us together that day on the roof, and death became our answer to give meaning to this meaningless life. You know what would have been lunatic...? Ignoring the call."
He parks on a patch of dirt flanked by a thorny bush shaped like a C. We opened the trunk. Nina, gagged and bound hand and foot, glares back at us with furious eyes. A thin trickle of blood runs down her forehead, thanks to the bounce from earlier. Daniel and I share a look.
"Remember, we're making it quick," I said.
"Alright, I get it, Mr. Killjoy."
I grabbed the shovels, tucked the wooden plank under my arm, and used the flashlight to lead the hike. Daniel carries Nina on his shoulders, following me as closely as he can. I cleared a path through the bushes with the shovels; an occasional thorn left its tip as a souvenir in my skin. Nina's muffled groans contrasted with my partner's laughter, thrilled by a new tribute for our sacrificial temple.
We walked until we reached a safe distance from the highway.
The creatures of nature are absent tonight, perhaps spooked by the mass-grave atmosphere dragging behind our fourth companion. Jeff unleashes a rain of unintelligible murmurs that, when I strained my ear, I managed to turn into a coherent repeating phrase.
A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple...
"Do you hear that?" I asked.
"It's a quiet night. Nina, do you hear anything? Oh, right, you can't talk. Silly me. And silly you for lying to us, you goddamn bitch."
Daniel rests Nina on a fallen trunk. She no longer wears her smile; she abandoned it the moment she woke up and found us in her room. She probably thought we were a product of her unbalanced mind, and in record time we made her understand that, unlike her prince, we are a flesh-and-blood danger.
I brushed aside the dead leaves and with both hands drove the wooden plank into the earth. Written on the front of the plank with a permanent marker are the words Here lies Jeff. We took the shovels and dug until we had a hole about three feet deep, maybe a little more.
"We're getting attention from the papers. We need to be more careful or we'll get caught," Daniel says without stopping his work.
"Saying goodbye to Wisconsin?"
"Not yet. First let's get a good truck, some cash, and sort out the issue with your mother. Without her it'll be harder to track us."
"Where will we go?"
"New Mexico. If things get complicated, we'll cross the border and drive far south. In the third world, killing is easier. The food is excellent, too."
"You seem very interested in food these days."
"My talents as a chef have finally blossomed, Joshua."
I am fascinated by the purr with which he pronounces my name.
New territories, new victims. The moon tonight celebrates the music flowing from the piano played by the bony hands of the corrupt, but in this concert, the mundane and ignorant only hear the wind blow. Its song begins to make sense only if you pay attention.
The ghost chuckles behind my back. Is that you, Jeff?
No.
Jeffrey Allen Woods is not Jeff. I bet Jeffrey was a good boy, loving, and despite his mistakes, innocent. But his death degenerated into crimes and sins. A less human entity emerged, a sympathizer of suffering.
Or perhaps it's an evil that already existed before Jeffrey, as old as the divinities, a profane power that merely usurped the boy's face. The one who sows and harvests the horror is a reaper in a white cloak.
Is there evil in the human heart? Sure. What does it take to squeeze it until that black, rotting substance seeps through the cracks of the battered? Just a story. Or a randomly caught impulse. A bad day. Hate. Abandonment. Infidelity. Sickness. The craving for suicide. Any triviality serves as an excuse.
Face violent death, let it bathe you and seduce you with the perfumes that waft from sweating, living bodies during torture. A choir more beautiful than any gem or utopian landscape.
Murder. Homicide. Annihilation. Massacre. Extermination. Didn't I tell you already? Our tongue is enchanted by the act of killing.
How bright life shines when death draws near. Murder is our vow of love. So do it, dear reader... It's always just one step away.
At a line as thin and fragile as a corpse's hair. The homicidal candle shines solitary in the dark side of every heart, illuminating the inner demons. A minuscule, pale flame that trembles with every heartbeat. And so we live, drenched in alcohol and bleach, waiting for the minuscule flame to give way to combustion.
In the end we found the truth, Daniel, dear friend. The answer that is yours and is mine. The end of THE SEARCH.
A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple. A healthy mind eats an apple...
I swung the shovel and nailed him in the back of the neck with the edge.
Daniel falls face-first into the damp earth, into the hole. I jumped in after him, and without waiting for him to turn over, I delivered another blow to his skull. Something crunches and caves in, and the earth moistens with a dark red dew. He thrashes in convulsions until, gripping the shovel with both hands, I drove the tip into his head.
Blood gushes from the ground and quickly fills the hole until it covers the body. Howling faces float in the growing crimson lake, hurling curses at the sky and reaching out their hands to drag me to hell. I dragged myself out of the pit and rested my back against the fallen trunk, panting.
Nina is nowhere to be seen.
Above the forest rises a giant with a flat, whitish face. Its figure hides the moon and towers over the mountains. It leans down, turning its eyes and its smile into my sky. From its corneas it emits a reddish light that bathes nature, giving it the beauty of the walls of a heart.
I threw my head back and let out a roar of laughter, I laughed until tears sprang to my eyes and my throat vomited fire. Jeff laughs with me. He leaves me deaf.
The earth trembles. The souls redirect their curses at him, at it. They spin, turned into spheres of light, burning with hatred the black messy locks that fall to the sides like waterfalls of ink. But they grow back, and Jeff's laughter reaches such a point that my consciousness threatens to shut down.
"Hey, smart guy!"
A firm, human voice snaps me back to reality. I rubbed my eyes, calmed my breathing, and stood up with the help of the shovel. I observed the remains of gray matter on the tip and deduced that everything is real. Finally, I cast a look at the source of the voice.
Nina is standing behind the man. He, who gave me a vague impression of having seen him before (maybe on TV), points a gun at me. The moon reclaims its reign. The lake of blood evaporates like a dream, and in its place remains a hole occupied by the corpse of the person I loved the most.
To you my confidants, witnesses, and to a certain extent accomplices to my sins: I admit complete satisfaction.
I closed my eyes, tightened my grip on the shovel, and ran toward the man. The gun roars.
Time to sleep forever.