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I stopped when we were about halfway down the side of the house. Enough distance between us and the sidewalk that, unless someone was looking, they wouldn’t see us, and if I left his body crumpled against the side of the house, no one would find him for a while.
Turning toward him, I ran a hand down my face. “It’s bad, man. It’s real bad.”
Zak took a step toward me. “Dude, just say it—”
He was now close enough for me to make a move, so that’s what I did. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around as my other arm snaked under his jaw and pressed against his neck. In the same movement, I pushed us closer to the house, practically pinning his front against the old brick.
“What the fuck?” Zak tried to struggle, but I was bigger. Taller. Stronger, even with the not quite healed wound on my stomach. He didn’t know about that, anyway. All he could do was try to move, but he couldn’t talk anymore due to the increased pressure between my forearm and his neck.
“She’s got a little stalker. I think it’s you, but even if it isn’t, I don’t fucking care,” I whispered as I choked him out. “She doesn’t need you in her life anymore, so why don’t you just die?”
To make it quick, to make it end so I could get the fuck out of here, I let go of his neck and brought both hands to his head. He was so out of it from being choked that he didn’t move, and even if he did, there was no way he could stop me. One hand on his jaw, the other on the back of his head.
It wasn’t as easy as they made it look in the movies, but if you were strong enough, if you knew what you were doing—if you’d done it before—it could be done.
I jerked both arms in opposite directions, forcing Zak’s head to bend in an unnatural way. A loud crack filled the air for just the quickest of moments, his spine severing and cracking in his neck. He slumped over immediately, and I caught him before he could fall. I pushed his body as close to the side of the house as possible, lowering us both to the ground.
His eyes were still open, their pupils dilated and glassy. A dark spot in his jeans slowly spread; he’d pissed himself in death. I rolled him over to his back as I searched for a wallet of some kind. In one of his back pockets I found it, and thank God he had some cash on him. Not much, just twenty bucks, but at least it was something. No car keys, though.
Shit. They must be in his room in the house. There was no way I’d be able to sneak inside the house. Too many other college boys who were up all hours of the day and night. It was a logistical nightmare.
I stuck my hands in my hoodie pocket and hurried away from Zak’s slumped figure, glancing both ways down the sidewalk before stepping onto it. There were a few people coming my way, but they were at least seventy feet away, too far to have seen anything. They’d think I just left one of these houses.
I kept my head down as I walked, though I did pull out my phone to look busy as they walked by—I noticed that’s what a lot of college students did as they walked around campus. Played on their phones. Texted their friends. Scrolled social media like the mindless zombies they were.
Honestly, I was never into that shit.
But as I walked past the group of two students coming my way, I saw I had a voicemail and a missed call from Charlie.
Let’s just say, thanks to the rush of adrenaline from killing that fool, it wasn’t what I was expecting to see, and my hurried pace slowed as I went to listen to it.
“Hey, it’s me.” Charlie’s voice came out soft and unsure, almost like she didn’t know what to say. And, as usual, she just sounded so damned sad. “I know you probably don’t want to talk to me again, but… I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry. I, uh, I’m going to handle things. I wanted to tell you that you were honestly kind of annoying sometimes, but you made life fun for a little while, so thank you.”
I almost smiled at the annoying part—because I could’ve said the exact same thing about her, but when she thanked me for making her life fun for a little while, that smile fell off my face.
This… what was this? Something wasn’t sitting right with me.
Charlie went on, “I’d never admit this to your face, but I had fun with you. Sounds crazy, I know. Anywho, good luck with…” There was a long pause, as if she was searching for the right words to say. “…everything. Goodbye.” And then, without further ado, she hung up.
I crossed the street, and once I did, my legs stopped. I re-listened to the message, that strange feeling in my gut only growing. Something wasn’t right here. Something was very, very wrong. The icing on the cake was the way she said goodbye.
It was like she was saying goodbye to more than just me.
I called her back, needing to know what she was talking about. What she meant. Why she’d sounded like that. But the stupid girl didn’t pick up. It rang and rang and rang and eventually went to her voicemail.
Shit.
Images of that tiny sharp blade tucked away in her closet rose to the forefront of my mind. I didn’t know why it took me this long to remember that tiny detail about Charlie, but when I did, I knew that call wasn’t just a goodbye call. It was thefinalcall.
Shit. Would she—I couldn’t even finish the question in my head, not wanting to believe it, not wanting to think about it. It didn’t matter if she would or wouldn’t. I couldn’t leave and pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t. I had to get back to her to make sure she was all right, and I had to do it fast.
I took off, moving as fast as I could without outright running. My goal was the student parking lot. I remembered it from the night of the party, so I took the same route there. It had obviously been dark that night, but I’d gotten a good look at it. It was huge; this college had a lot of commuters, so I’d bet anything there would be a plethora of vehicles to choose from.
I didn’t need anything fancy. In fact, it had to be older. Older with no tracking—none of that constant connectivity Wi-Fi bullshit. The older the car, the easier it would be for me to break in and steal it. Knowing how to hotwire a car was Criminal 101. You never knew if you’d need to make a fast getaway.
As I hurried to the parking lot, I couldn’t fight the uneasy feeling inside. The more I thought about how she’d sounded in that call, the surer I was that she was going to do something, to make the worst mistake she could.
What would I do if I got back to that house and found her lying in a pool of her own blood? What would I do if she was dead? The mere possibility that I wouldn’t get there in time made something in my gut harden in the worst way. Dread filled my body.
