The local morning news was rambling on about the two missing persons. One, a middle-aged man, and another, a girl from the high school. The anchor, a high-strung, erratically gesturing white woman with dyed-blonde hair, stated that authorities believed the disapperances were unrelated. Katie laughed and spit out a little hot chocolate.
As the well-informed media segued from that into the weather, Katie's cell buzzed. It was a text from Rita.
"Jake wouldn't just skip town, something is wrong..."
"I watched him for forty miles, Reet. He didn't look back." Katie lied.
"The cops say everyone says he didn't say anything about leaving... I don't understand any of this."
"Sometimes people just snap, I don't understand either."
"You heard about the teenage girl? You don't think he ran off with her, do you?" Rita asked.
"No. He was alone." Katie lied. Again.
Katie found herself lying to her friends more often. There was only one other option - prison. Would her lifelong friends help her cover-up murders that the victims may have not deserved? Even if, from a certain perspective, each one was warranted? Even if in a vigilante style? Probably not, and when life in prison is on the line, it is far better to err on the side of caution.
In the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator was not cookies, but a few small ziplock bags and one larger of dank green buds. Katie opened the cookie jar and grasped a small bag. She turned off the television and awoke her computer. As she began to break up the marijuana, the computer came to life and Katie selected The Beatles album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' Then she proceeded to roll and smoke a nice joint.
Just about the time the end of 'With A Little Help From My Friends.' was upon her and she felt stoned enough to put out the joint, Katie's phone rang.
This was an unknown number, the digits displayed on the screen but Katie did not recognize it.
Most people will let unknown numbers go to voicemail, but our hero is not most people. Also, as we know, she was, for the most part, toasted. Katie drug the green phone icon to the center of the screen.
Before she could say 'hello,' she heard grumbling on the line. "Kates, feckin answer. Shit, come on, damn, fuck."
"Hey, uh, hello, what's up?" Katie replied into her samsung.
"Oh, Katie! Thank God you're there! Look, I was just lookin through them dumpsters a-hind D's Diner and down the alley-way there, I seent a few fella's come all empty-handed and go with a table saw. Then there was this one fella came after that and he left with a skill saw an' a tile saw an'a bookbag full o'shit. Kates, I t'ink I found who took all yer shit an' its them fuckers Gary an' Mike an' Brad. Ya know them bastards are always up to no good. Ah, shit! I'm freakin out."
Katie was silent, but looked at her phone display. It had just reached 20 seconds of call duration.
"Kates, you there, fuck!"
"Nick, I'm here, now tell me what you saw again."
Nick was a local bum. Slightly mentally disabled, an alcoholic for sure, but he was certainly not a liar. Nick had been sleeping on park benches and under business awnings for as long as Katie could remember. Some people said he came from up north, but not sure where. When asked, he claimed to be from Earth. He looked much older but no one knew he and Katie were roughly the same age, including Nick.
Katie listened and made mental notes as Nick drunkenly detailed what he had spoken so quickly in the beginning of the conversation from his position at the phonebooth on the sidewalk.
Ashley and Sierra walked down the sidewalk, past D's Diner and south towards 6th street.
"I don't know, Ash, Gary is a good guy and just gettin things from people who'll never find out don't seem like no crime to me."
"Well, all I'm sayin is he betta not try to take down Brad."
Sierra looked at her friends resolute face as they carried the bottles of liquor and beer to their temporary home with Gary, Mike and Brad. She then realized that this life was about survival, and that meant siding with someone who would take care of you. Not with a friend from high school that would have sex with your man's friends to score dope.
What she did not realize was that Katie and Nick were sitting in Katie's Buick with the front windows down, parked on the side of the street, and listening to most of their conversation.
Around sunset, Katie dropped Nick off at Washington Park with a prize of two Mickey's 40oz bottles, for letting her know. Telling him she promised she would just watch the house and make notes, that she wouldn't do anything stupid. And that they would get together around noon the next day.
As darkness took over the town, the music from Gary's house intensified gradually. Katie observed this from her parking spot three houses down on the opposite side of the street.
Two hours later, she decided to exit the vehichle.
As Katie walked up the sidewalk toward Gary's rental, the sounds of 'Bring Da Ruckus,' blasted from the front room and emanated around the house. She casually walked to the side of the house and walked through the open fence gate to the back yard.
"Oh, I am bringin da mofuckin ruckus," Katie thought as she stepped up onto the back deck and slowly opened the screen door on the back door of the house. The cheap, shabby door was also unlocked and Katie once again silently entered a residence.
The hallway was lit with two doorways open and one closed. Funny, the layout was eerily similar to that of Tammy's house. And, even funnier, the closed door muffled the sounds of bodies slapping together and the bass line of human grunts kept a good beat.
Katie thought it best to leave them to it, and explore, silently, of course.
The hallway had four torn and knocked over fast-food bags and quite a few fries scattered on the carpet. Katie stepped around and over these so as not to make a sound, even though the sounds of The Wu-Tang Clan dominated the audible surroundings.
There was a zigzag in the hallway that blocked view to the living room, where the stereo system played, Katie peaked her head around the corner and pulled it quickly back to safety.
She saw three poeple. One, by himself, engrossed in his phone. And two others, dancing and gyrating their hips in the small open space between the coffee table and the television, engrossed in the fornicational implications of their dance moves.
Katie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She pulled her dagger from its holster secured on the inside pants, on her front right hip.
Turning the corner quickly and throwing the dagger at Brad, who had both of his arms over his head, Katie watched the knife plunge into his neck.
Mike quickly stood up, saying, "What the fuck?" to be greeted by a bowie knife to the stomach. Katie pulled it out and slit his throat.
Ashley screamed a high-pitched squeaking sound as Katie turned her body and drop-kicked Ashley in the face over the coffee table. The young girl fell and broke the glass to the fine table of Gary's and cut her hands and face on the glass.
Her blood/alcohol level was high considering the volume at which the blood exited her body. Katie pulled the knife out of Brad's throat as he lay dead on the floor and sliced Ashley's throat.
Katie heard a door open and a man's voice say, "Fuck's goin on out there?!" and she quickly knelt below the kitchen counter beside the hallway.
A young white girl in a thin robe slowly stepped into the kitchen and Katie sprung up like a kangaroo and slit Sierra's throat. Slowly and gently resting her body to the linoleum, Katie heard the voice again, "What the fuck's goin on, Mike?!" then the sound of a zipper in pants.
A small, bald-headed, scraggly-bearded, ugly, shirtless man came barreling past the kitchen into the front room and had time to violently gasp before Katie drove the 12-inch bowie knife through his lower spine with her right hand and slit his throat with her dagger in her left hand.
Gary's body fell with a thud.
Katie checked Gary's closet to no luck, then she looked under the bed and found more than she had bargained for.
The green duffle bag had, what Katie would later count out as, $32,078. And the blue duffle bag had weed, coke, and something else, probably meth, in large amounts. Katie couldn't believe her eyes, and just stared at her new-found treasure.
Katie had turned off the wonderful beats of Wu-Tang after extinguishing Gary's life and the house was silent as the grave. That is why Katie jumped up and ran with the two duffle bags when a voice from nowhere said -
"RUN!"
With the two bags in her back storage of the SUV, Katie slowly pulled away from the curb and drove slowly to the end of the block. As she the corner she heard police sirens.
Katie drove east of town this time, to the oil fields. It was time to make up an alibi.
Submitted January 29, 2018 at 04:18AM by hiseexcellency http://ift.tt/2rKDQcp nosleep
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