Road Kill -- Part 3: Breakfast at the Okefenokee Swamp

A bumpy ride.

Something was not right about the way Nikki felt. She sensed that there was something that required her immediate attention, but she couldn’t recall exactly what.

She opened her eyes to find that she was lying in the back seat of her Celica. Tina was driving with Misty riding shotgun.

For some reason, they had chosen to change the radio station, and 311’s "Don’t Tread on Me," was blasting out of the speakers.

Nikki felt a draft.

The engine of the car sounded too strong, and the car was making strange rattling noises as if the frame was loose.

The car smelled like urine. It was almost as if someone had peed in the back seat.

And now, they were on some kind of dirt road. Why had they turned off the interstate?

She felt crumpled into an unnatural position with her hands and feet behind her back.

She’d tried to move, but her limbs were too heavy.

The car rumbled to a halt.

She opened her eyes in time to see Tina open the door and climb out.

But the door didn’t sound right as it shut behind her. It sounded heavy and metallic like the door of an old truck.

She closed her eyes and then opened them again, and when she opened them, everything changed.

She was not in her car at all but in an old burgundy cargo van with no windows.

Tina and Misty were piled up by the back door – Misty lying on top of Tina. Their attacker had taken all of their clothes.

Their cheeks were pressed against each other with their heads turned toward her. Misty’s eyes were open in an eternal, zoned-out gaze. Tina’s eyes were closed, and thick black clots of blood stuck to her right temple and in her hair.

They looked as though they were caught in some kind of hellish embrace.

Nikki looked down.

She was naked except for a Depends undergarment.

She opened her mouth to scream, but only a soft grown came out. She tugged at her hands to find that they were bound to her feet behind her back.

The latch binding the back doors of the van clacked and the passenger’s side back door squeaked open. A blast of humid air rushed in carrying with it a musky odor – as if there was stale water somewhere nearby.

Her attacker yanked down the latch on the second door and pushed it open.

Outside, it was first light.

The dirt road, which was more of a trail than a road, was surrounded by some of the tallest trees she’d ever seen – some of them jagged and menacing.

Everett Burns was dressed from head to toe in what looked like a makeshift Hazmat suit that he’d stitched together from blue tarps.

He grasped Misty by the left ankle and right arm and dragged her out of the van like a dead animal. Her body flopped down on the ground with her head banging against the bumper.

Everett, who seemed not to notice her at all reached inside the van again to an object just out of sight, propped up behind the fender well and one of the frame braces. When he pulled the object out, she realized that he had an axe.

A chord of terror rang through her chest.

Everett slammed both of the doors, and she could hear him outside dragging Misty’s corpse.

Why was he doing this?

"Help," she croaked.

But the sound that came from her mouth was weak and pathetic. Not much more than a whisper.

Her eyes shifted around the van.

Just below her feet and before the side doors sat a spare tire. Behind her, yellow rope wound and tied neatly just before Tina.

At Tina’s feet sat a filleting knife. Her eyes bulged.

She scooted toward it.

But no more than half a foot toward the back of the van, the rope binding her hands and feet snapped tight.

Nikki was tied to the van too.

An unintelligible cry of despair escaped her.

Tina’s eye lids flickered.

She held her breath.

Her eyes fixed on Tina.

In a moment, Tina’s head moved ever so slightly.

"Tina?" She whispered.

Outside – a new sound. She heard the falls of the axe. It sounded as though Everett Burns was chopping up a watermelon.

She felt nauseous.

Tina’s eyes parted slightly and glistened in the darkness. There was a thick fog behind her gaze. She didn’t seem quite aware of Nikki’s presence.

"Tina?" she whispered.

Tina responded with a moan of anguish.

"Oh, thank God! Listen, I know it hurts, but if we don’t do something, we’re going to die. Everett Burns has killed Misty, and he tried to kill you. There’s a knife at your feet. Bring it to me."

Tina looked down at her feet. The confusion was still all over her face. She was conscious, but not completely. Tina’s eyes found her again heavy with pain. Her right hand found her right temple.

She wailed in pain and despair.

"Bring me the knife, Tina. Our lives depend on it."

Tina looked down toward her feet again, reached down, and fingered the knife. But then it appeared that she forgot what she was doing.

She touched her temple again and whimpered.

"I know. I know it’s hard. But I need you to concentrate. Give me the knife."

Tina reached down again and grasped the knife.

"Get the knife. Get the knife. Get the knife."

Tina looked back up to her.

"Bring it here."

Tina dropped the knife and started toward her.

"No, no, no, no! What the hell’s wrong with you nimrod. Bring me that knife."

Tina looked down to the knife and picked it up again.

"Bring the knife to me. Bring the knife to me. Bring the knife to me."

Tina started crawling slowly toward her with the knife.

* * * *

Everett tossed the last two pieces of Misty’s body into the Okefenokee Swamp. The three alligators that had gathered for the feeding frenzy each snatched at it. The dark green waters muddied with blood.

Everett shook his head at himself.

This had been his clumsiest hunting expedition ever. He had many years of experience in this sort of thing; he should be better.

Perhaps he’d bit off more than he could chew.

Or maybe it all went back to the proverb his father had beaten into his head. "A failed venture is a direct result of bad leadership and poor planning."

That thought instantly pissed him off.

Everett had done his homework on the girls, particularly Nikki. He knew every move she would make before she did. What he had done wrong was that he hadn’t controlled all the variables. He’d left his victims too much wiggle room.

His original plan was to follow the girls from Bridgeton, Georgia – where they all lived -- to just inside Florida. He’d rented two storage units in Gainesville, Florida just off I-75. There, he’d stashed an old Dodge Van that he’d bought off an individual for $700.00.

The idea was to watch them and wait for an opportunity. The ideal situation would have been to catch Nikki by herself and take her without the other girl’s knowledge. He hadn’t relished the idea of killing either of them. They were not his quarry.

But the closer they came to Florida, the more it seemed that he was not to have an opportunity, so while they were inside the Waffle House, he made his own. He disconnected their alternator, took their cell phones, and then he raced ahead of them to the nearest rest stop where he removed the microphones from all of the payphones.

He should’ve been more patient and just followed them into Florida. As much of a bitch as Nikki was, he was very likely to piss her friends off and end up alone.

But he panicked, and had to kill a cop as a result.

Killing a cop was no different than killing any other, he supposed -- accept that it invited all kinds of scrutiny. He’d operated very successfully under the radar for most of his adult life, and now, he’d given them a blip.

He’d removed the video camera from the cruiser, looted all of the shotguns which he’d just thrown in the swamp along with his .44. He didn’t think he’d left any evidence, but he had no way of knowing for sure if the cop had called in the tag on his Winnebago.

Though the thrill of the hunt had been splendid, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to take on such an ambitious endeavor again.

He turned away from the dark waters of the marsh, and climbed the bank. The he stabbed the axe into a tree stump and started for the back of the van.

* * * *

Nikki carved frantically on the ropes binding her hands staring earnestly at Tina.

She wasn’t feeling quite so drained now. Whatever he’d drugged her with was wearing off.

And Tina’s senses seemed to be joining her as well. The look of confusion on her face was still apparent, but she seemed to be having slightly less trouble remembering the problem at hand.

All was going well until the back doors of the van swung open again.

The sight of Everett caused Nikki and Tina to scream simultaneously.

Everett was startled by the commotion and took two steps back away from the van.

"What have we here? It seems I didn’t do my job well enough."

He reached out and grasped Tina by the leg causing Tina to scream again. Tina reached frantically for the knife Nikki was using on her ropes, but Nikki shrunk away. Tina stared back into Nikki’s face with an accusatory look.

Nikki looked away.

* * * *

Everett, a bit frustrated now, grasped Tina by both her ankles and yanked her. Tina kicked at him hard and clawed at the bed of the van.

He yanked her again. She slid helplessly out of the van and fell to the muddy ground hard on her belly. Quickly, she rolled over on her back and skittered backwards toward the painted bumper.

Everett looked her up and down.

She didn’t have the prettiest face. Her features were bulbous, but her body was almost perfect.

Apple-sized breasts.

Strong thighs.

A perfect hourglass figure.

It was a shame to have to waste such a promising youth, but she had come in between him and a very deserving target.

He shook his head as she clambered to her feet.

"You are one strong girl," he said.

She glared at him, standing now. There was confusion in her eyes that seemed to come over her in waves as if she were continuously forgetting her situation and then remembering.

She was having balance problems. She rocked unsteadily on her feet like a drunk.

"What are you doing, Tina?" he said.

"Even if, by some miracle you were to put me down, you probably wouldn’t survive the day. My guess is that you have a fractured skull, and it’s only a matter of time before a blood clot hits your brain."

Tina screamed, side stepped him, and ripped the axe out of the stump – brandishing it ineptly.

He shook his head. "And what are you going to do with that?"

He could see his words sinking in slowly.

"You can barely hold yourself up, let alone handle an axe. Give that to me, and I promise I’ll make it quick and painless. It wasn’t my original intention to kill you anyway."

She shrieked and swung the axe clumsily at him.

Everett side-stepped her and shoved her down the steep back toward the marsh.

The axe fell out of her hands and she tumbled head over heels through the mud.

She didn’t deserve what happened next.

Tina came to a rest on her belly on the bank of the swamp.

She looked up from the ground with her back to him – still having trouble keeping up with everything going on. She stood slowly.

The dark waters of the swamp were calm now – only slightly tinted by Misty’s blood. Hundreds of Lilly pads dotted the surface like emerald-colored satin.

With ferocious speed an alligator lunged from the water with his mighty jaws clamping down on her legs.

An inhuman shriek escaped her.

The gator pulled her hard back toward the water, and she fell flat on her butt. She kicked hard with her free leg and clawed at the muddy bank.

The gator pulled again, and she was waist-deep in the water. She slapped at something below the surface – the water splashing wildly.

Then another alligator leapt from the water and sunk its teeth in her abdomen. Then the death-roll began. The gator started spinning her head over feet trying to drown her. The splashing and the screams were terrible.

Then, all at once, the waters settled.

The only evidence that the Gators or Tina had been there was the air boiling up through the waters where she’d went down.

Everett could only stare – mesmerized by the terrible attack.

Then, just as quickly as she’d disappeared, she sprang from the water again.

Her eyes were vacant – shocked.

She walked slowly from the water as if sleep walking. Apparently, she hadn't noticed that her belly was ripped open and her bowls were dragging behind her in the water.

One of the Gators sprang to the surface and fastened his teeth into her left arm. She continued trying to pull away. She wasn’t screaming anymore.

The other Gator shot up and bit down on her other arm, and then they pulled her back into the water.

She was gone.

Everett gazed at the horror for an indeterminate amount of time.

Then he felt a sharp jab on the side of his right thigh. He looked down in the direction of the blow to find the handle of his filleting knife protruding from his leg.

He spun around.

"TAKE THAT YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH," Nikki screamed.

Then she spun around and shot back up the bank, slipping in the mud, and then sprinted across the dirt path and into the woods.

Everett looked after her and found himself smiling. She looked completely ridiculous charging through the swamp wearing nothing but an adult diaper.

And for a moment, he felt a twinge of respect for her.

Spirited prey was always good.

He closed his fist around the handle of the knife and ripped it out wincing in pain.

Then he climbed back up the bank, retrieved his axe, and started after her.

(Part 4: Reaper coming soon)