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I splash cold water onto my face from the sink, and it smells like lake water. At least the water in prison was clean. I got used to the iron taste, but it was never fishy like this run-down excuse for a gas station.
As I stare at my gruff reflection in the mirror, there’s a rap on the door that rattles the hinges. My heart leaps into my throat for a moment before I remember I’m not in prison anymore.
Knocks like that always meant trouble. Here, they probably mean someone has a tiny bladder.
I wipe the water down my face, flicking it into in the general direction of the sink before turn to the door. There’s another knock as my hand closes around the corroded sliver handle.
As I throw the door open, I’m met with an angry stare from the meth-head cashier. “The bathroom is for paying customers only,” he says, pointing a knobby finger at the sign beside my head.
I look down at him for a moment, amused more than anything that he thinks he has some type of authority over a man triple his size. In prison, I’d turn someone like him into a jigsaw puzzle for looking at me the wrong way, but the game has changed.
I’m relieved, actually. I just washed my hands. I’d hate to get them dirty again.
I shrug as I walk past him toward the exit. He doesn’t try to stop me, as he’d be a fool to mess with a man with nothing to lose. I hear him grumble some obscenities under his breath, but I ignore them as I return to the cold and rainy road to Montana.
I continue my journey on foot. Bus prices are astronomical compared to what they were when I was running around the country causing havoc, and I need every cent of my fifty dollars for food on the way there.
The system is cruel, and we’re all just unfortunate actors in a movie that doesn’t bother to include us in the script. That’s why I’m out here, making my own way. If I had followed the rules like a good little boy, I’d be hopeless.
Instead, I buried my treasure where nobody would find it, swearing up and down to come back for it and continue my reign of terror on this sorry excuse for a planet when I got out.
IfI got out. In retrospect, twenty-five years was less than I deserved, but I’m not one to complain about getting dealt better cards than the guy next to me. I’ll take what I can get, and I’ll be damned if I give anything back.
The rain picks up as I continue into the darkness, my boots sliding through halfway frozen mud, slushy goop that would gladly be the end of me if I gave up and laid down in it to sleep.
I was safer behind bars.
But I was never bothered much by danger. In my eyes, I was lucky to be given the chance to have a life at all. It’s the only thing that kept me sane while I wasted my youth in a room barely big enough to lie down in.
Besides, the danger is almost always to my advantage. While others shy away from it or succumb to the lullaby of death, I’m strong enough to brave the storm and reap the benefit that no one else can.
I’ve prepared over half my life for this moment, and there’s nothing and nobody that could possibly stand in my way.
2
Kimberly
Islide my key into the lock, my heart leaping up into my throat at the prospect of finally owning my own home. I’ve waited so many years for this, nickel-and-dimed to scrounge up enough money for a down payment on a house, and managed to snag the only one on the market in the same city as my new job.
Blessed is an understatement.
I managed to get this house for just under two-hundred-thousand dollars, making it possible for me to afford the mortgage payments on the salary I’m receiving. I do wonder who had to die in it to get the price so low, but I wasn’t about to ask too many questions.
A blessing is a blessing. No need to spoil it.
Even though the heating hasn’t been turned on in the house yet and I still have to wear my coat inside, I’m thankful to be out of the rain. It’s been coming down in sheets. I was told it would be snowing all the time in Montana, but all I’ve seen so far is rain, rain, and more rain.
I almost veered off the road and ran into an enormous man – could’ve been Bigfoot – on the way here, but I managed to avoid him at the last second. What’s a guy like that doing walking down the road in the middle of nowhere, anyway? It seemed weird, but I wasn’t about to stop and ask him any questions.
Big guy. Like, really fucking big. I wasn’t about to risk being Bigfoot’s next victim.
And God only knows what else is creeping around this part of the country late at night. We’re not that far from the mountains. My dad used to tell me stories about Skinwalkers but I’m not buying that one. Bigfoot is about as far as I’ll go before it all starts to reek of B.S.
I’m a practical gal. Down to earth. Normal. I don’t see how people can get so far into their fantasies that they lose sight of what’s right in front of them. The world simply isn’t that exciting. We’re material people living in a little gray material world.
I’d go so far to call it boring, but my life has taken a bit of a turn with this new job, and I’m staying optimistic until life finds a way to disappoint me again. I’m sure that won’t take long.
Oops, there’s my pessimism peering its ugly little head back in again. I can never seem to shrug that little devil off, despite what my therapist taught me about positive affirmations.
