Night overtook the sky as Kathy and her new associates finally found the mythical car they had been searching for the last hour. For a time, the dancer worked on the door, attempting to slip a thin sliver of metal down from the window to jimmy the lock. The gay guys sat with each other on the ground while Kathy watched the dancer, growing increasingly frustrated the longer it took her to get the lock. Kathy knew it would take all of 3 seconds to bust open the window with one of the moderately large chunks of metal which accompanied the debris that coated the ground like an early winter snow. All the same, Kathy could not allow her frustrations to take over just yet. As it stood, these 3 idiots seemed to be leading her directly to a jumping off point where she could continue her mission against the world. If this mythical car which now proved to be not mythical at all truly could lead them all to this mythical cabin in the woods, there would be plenty of opportunities to kill the fag hag and her cock-sucking compatriots. Still, watching the dancer fail to open the lock boiled Kathy's blood like Ian failing to cook Spaghetti.
all your fault
Ian and Billy were quieter, at least for now. Maybe it was the renewed sense of hope in the mission, or a fresh set of fools to blame, but whatever allowed for the reprieve, Kathy gladly took it. Billy and Ian were hard enough to deal with when they were alive.
A reverberating click sounded from within the car.
"Got it!" said the dancer.
"Awesome, Darla! Come on, Jacks, let's get out of here," said one of the gays, before he looked over at Kathy. "You still coming, too?"
Kathy nodded, as she said, "so long as you have a place we can hide out while this blows over." Kathy held back her laughter at how poor her lie was, yet how easily those idiots fell for it.
The other gay guy turned his head towards Kathy, his gaze suddenly shifting slightly, like the muscles in his face felt uncomfortable with how they naturally lay. There was something about how he looked at her. Did he know?
he knows, Billy whispered.
The other gay looked at her even deeper, his brow adjusting forward, mouth curled into a frown.
"Jackie?" said the dancer, looking at her brother.
The dancer's voice seemed to shake whatever force overtook him, as the brother's eyes shot to the ground, the muscles relaxing into their natural position, as he spun back towards the car.
The gays and the dancer stepped into the car, the dancer taking the wheel. To her surprise, the gays took the back seat, leaving shotgun for Kathy.
As if rehearsed dozens of times, the dancer took the sliver of metal and jammed it into the car's keyhole. Jiggling the piece of metal, the dancer swore, before pulling the metal out.
"Fuck..." the dancer said under her breath, as she reached into her bag, pulling out a screwdriver. She then unscrewed the cover by the steering wheel, before pulling out a panel with some wires. She then grabbed a couple red wires, and stripped them back with her teeth, before twisting the copper within the wire together; the car immediately jumped to life.
"Yes!" she said, high-fiving one of the men in the back, although Kathy didn't bother looking back to see which.
"You shouldn't strip wires with your teeth," said her brother in the back, "it's not safe."
"Chill, Jackie, I know what I'm doing! Now, let's get on the road!" The dancer then sighed, "what's left of it, anyway."
The car sputtered down the road, which seemed more pothole than anything else. Each inch the car took bumped along aggressively, giving Kathy a headache. To make matters worse, the headlights were shot, making the path forward obscured, preventing safe transit. All the same, Kathy rubbed her forehead and continued on. They couldn't be more than an hour's drive away from the mountains, and such a short distance would not afford the car a chance to ruin Kathy's mood.
In the back, Kathy listened as the two men talked amongst themselves. She wished they would be quiet; she couldn't stand the incessant sounds of young love, her being one who has long since been exposed to what young love turns into: old resentment. Years past, when her and Ian were both in their 20s, and still wide-eyed about the world, everything was open to them. The thought of having a child at that time would have been something beautiful; a gift from God....when she did have a child, it was anything but. When love needs to be distributed evenly among more than 2 people, it collapses under the weight of responsibility. This was something Kathy knew all too well, with each interrupted kiss, each interrupted fuck, each interrupted love, always disturbed by the needs of a child that shouldn't have existed. No wonder, Kathy thought, Ian killed himself. If it hadn't been him, I would have done it first.
"How are you holding up with it all?" the dancer asked Kathy. Kathy was confused.
"With it all?" she asked.
"Your son. He died?"
"Oh, right, shit."
"It's okay, we don't have to talk about it."
"He's dead. Not much else to say. His father died. The world died," Kathy said. "Is dying," she said, corrected herself.
The dancer smiled, "The world is not dying! Not if I have anything to say about it! The old world is dying, late-stage capitalism kicking and screaming for the last time, but the world will keep going."
Not if I have anything to say about it. Kathy thought.
The car continued down the road with significant protest from its engine, as it coughed out the dust of misuse. Each bump felt like the car was going to collapse like the cartoons Kathy watched as a kid. Yet despite its desire to quit, the car kept driving as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and night took over the world. Still, as light still radiated from the sun's hidden glow, Kathy could make out the ruined bodies that were scattered across and to the side of the road. She couldn't imagine that this many people died in the fight itself, yet the bodies seemed fresh, and were riddled with bullet holes, and the occasional skull and brain matter pulverized into the concrete by some car, or perhaps a tank. Kathy didn't know, nor did she care. She wasn't a soldier, and had no interest in the machines that facilitated war, only that war was happening at all. The buildings surrounded the car like bent spires curling inward, spiraling about their mid-points, dust and debris cascading down their swirls; this cataclysm did more than destroy Baltimore, but altered its very physicality. These impossible structures denoted, to Kathy, a breakdown of reality itself. it's for the best she thought, the world will join you soon, Ian. Soon, Billy. For the first time since Billy died, she felt herself cry. At first, her chin quivered and the odd tear dripped from her eyes, but soon she was sobbing into the dash. The dancer said something to her, but nothing reached. She was as much in that car as the buildings overhead were swirled about their waist. The world was gone, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, and Kathy was gone, too. She was gone the day Ian killed himself. Billy's death meant nothing to her as she had long since joined the dead. Maybe that was it? Maybe she was dead, and she was forced to live on in a hell of her own making. How did she die? Did she kill herself? Did someone kill her?
"They killed you," Ian said.
"Why did you let them kill you?" Billy asked.
Her comfortable distance from the voices of Ian and Billy were once more disrupted, as she was returned to the ultraviolence of her imagination. The buildings distorted further, as blood mixed with the ash, forming a whirlpool about the sky, obscuring the dying light of the sun, and the newborn light of the moon. In the pure dark of moonless night, only the ash and blood were visible to Kathy, as her sobs echoed through the spiralling vortex which surrounded her and the car.
"Is she okay?" one of the men said, his voice pushing past the sounds of her tears.
As she opened her eyes again, the buildings stood upright, and the blood now only coated the ground around the bodies which painted the ground and sky above. The faces of the dead were Ian and Billy's.
"Her son died," said the other man, "I'd be crying, too."
No other sounds pushed past her sobs, as the city faded away to trees and the bodies were replaced with road. The trees were familiar to Kathy, but she couldn't place them. Soon, however, she saw a bridge with ornate overhangs which told her immediately where she was: Loch Raven Reservoir. She used to look at the dam with Ian before Billy was born. Ian loved to fish the water, although he wasn't supposed to. Not only did he not have a license, he also fished in the off-limits zone. They were better times, when the worst thing you had to worry about was DNR finding you fishing where you weren't allowed. In some ways, Kathy was glad Ian was gone, so he didn't have to watch what she was doing to the world in its final hours. See what she was going to do to these people once they made it to their destination.
Driving over the little bridge by the dam, Kathy took a deep breath, taking in the smell of the marshy waters below. It was what she smelled when she ran from home after her dad tried to rape her. If she smelled the marshes, she was safe from the man that tormented her. Eventually, he would find her hiding spot, but for those precious weeks before he died, she was safe by the marshes. In that quiet moment of reflection, Kathy considered if her mission of chaos was justified. Maybe the dancer was right after all.
From the marshes, Ian and Billy rose, and in unison, began to scream.
Kathy nailed her hands to her ears, blocking out all sound, yet the sound pushed in from her nose, as she smelled their hate.
The radio buzzed on, as from the tired speakers of the car came the screams of all the people that died because of her. They all cried out as Ian and Billy had, decrying Kathy's guilt.
"QUIET!!!!!" Kathy screamed.
The car came to a stop as the dancer pulled to the side of the road.
"Seriously, what is wrong with you? Why did you kill them?" the dancer asked.
"What?" Kathy asked, taken aback by her forwardness.
"Seriously, what did we say that was so wrong? Why did you scream?"
"Oh." Kathy said, "I wasn't listening to you, Billy and Ian were too loud."
"It's time for you to go," said one of the men.
Kathy shot her head back, confused.
"No, she's clearly hurt, we can't just leave her here!" said the other.
"She's dangerous. She has to leave. Now. I won't let her hurt us."
"He saw you!!" Billy laughed from the Marshes, "He saw you, he saw you, he saw you!!!" he said as though it were a song.
"She is not dangerous, Jacks! You should know better than anyone that being mentally ill does not make you dangerous."
"I'm not crazy, I'm just tired! Let's just get to this cabin or wherever we're going so I can sleep," Kathy insisted.
"I don't think we should be calling ourselves crazy, no? It's kind of an antiquated term," said the man that Kathy quickly began to grow annoyed by.
"Fine, I'm not 'mentally ill' or whatever the fuck. Just don't leave me out here to die!!"
"Why do you think she's dangerous, Jackie?" asked the dancer.
The one who wanted her gone stopped, in apparent thought as to what to say next. Eventually, he said, "I can see it in her eyes. She is gonna hurt us."
"I'm not leaving someone out to fend for themselves in the swamps off of your intuition, Jackie. I trust you, but not that much," the dancer said, before pulling the car back on the road, and continuing towards their destination.
Kathy didn't know how he could see what she was planning, but she knew that the first person she would have to kill would be him.
The car was silent for a while after the conflict, as the road grew long, and the sunlight expired. The hazy light of the headlights shined faintly into the treeline, as the smell of marsh was exchanged for the smell of dirt and pine.
"Where's this cabin, anyway?" Kathy asked the dancer.
"Up in Appalachia. Me and Jack used to go up there to visit our grandmother before she died. As far as we know, it's been abandoned, since our uncle didn't do anything with the land after he got it in the inheritance."
"As far as you know?"
"It's in the middle of the woods, it could have been destroyed by a falling tree for all we know. To say nothing of any squatters who might be in it."
"If it's not there, we have other options. Neighbors who have houses we can stay in," the one who knew about Kathy said, his voice different than it had been when he demanded she be left to die. More fatigued.
"How far are we from it?"
"'bout 40-ish minutes."
almost time., Kathy thought, even if the world isn't dying on its own, it still needs to be killed.