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Undisclosed Location
Friday, October 25th, 12:35 AM, Local Time
Driving had always calmed the sniper, and so she had driven needlessly, mindlessly for hours—around and around. But that’s what happened when there was nothing left to do, and she hated being idle. It was in those moments the darkness crept in and grabbed on with a viselike grip. Any spark of humanity that sometimes ignited was then snuffed out before it could catch flame.
She didn’t need to arrive at her last destination until Sunday, and it was barely Friday. There would be plenty of time to drive to her heart’s content, but she needed rest, and she needed a drink—something the doctors advised against, but sometimes she preferred booze to medication. Sure, the former amplified the taunting voices and crystalized images, but it also provided a therapeutic meeting ground to face the demons, tucked away in a cloak of impregnability. She already had her drink of choice sitting in a brown bag on the front passenger seat. She was only moments away from tearing it free, like she had done with gifts on Christmas morning as a child. At least there were a few happy memories of the festive season. Like everything, though, good times had a way of disappearing—if they showed up at all.
She pulled into the lot of a motel that advertised hourly rates and had a flashing neon-green vacancy light. A place like this would probably take cash and ask no questions because with the clientele they’d attract, they wouldn’t want answers.
The male clerk behind the desk looked like the walking dead, high on something—or a combination of somethings.
“You take cash?” the sniper asked.
“Yep.” The clerk continued staring at the phone in his hands like it held the secrets of the universe.
“I need a room for the night.”
The clerk mumbled the rate, and she slapped the bills on the counter.
“Here.” The clerk swept the money into his palm and handed her a key. “Room 13.”
Superstitiously unlucky, and she didn’t want to take any chances. “What about room 8? Is it available?”
“Sure.” Indifferent, he swapped out the keys, and she left.
The room smelled like an ashtray and looked like one, full of what appeared to be unwanted furniture plucked from a vintage store for ten dollars apiece or less. But she didn’t really care; it was just a resting place, nothing more, nothing less. Much like her life had been in reflection.
She shucked the bottle of Jack Daniel’s free of the bag and unscrewed the lid. She took a long pull and closed her eyes as she let herself sink out of reality, into the space of unconsciousness, blissfulness, nonjudgment, nonconformity, freedom. All of this was a lot of pressure on the drink, but it was nothing the 80 proof couldn’t handle.
The TV was a little tube television, and she half-expected it to be a black-and-white model, even though “Color TVs” was something that had made it on the sign out front of the motel. She turned on the TV and settled in, drinking until everything around her blended and blurred into indistinct shapes. The one TV becoming two and morphing into the dresser it sat on, the picture on the wall flattening and amalgamating with the wall. Yes, this moment was bliss, where regrets and painful memories weren’t allowed to exist—and yet they came. At first seeping into awareness and then rushing in like water overtaking the Titanic.
She had killed a lot of people in her lifetime; their faces never forgotten, and she had killed again today. Well, yesterday now, according to the clock, which told her it was after midnight, the technical dawning of a new day.
She lifted the bottle back for another swig and wiped her mouth. An onslaught of images struck with a vengeance. The bullet meeting its target. Darrell Reid falling to the ground. Pedestrians running and screaming, seeking cover.
Darrell wouldn’t have had time to question what hit him—unless he inquired from God in heaven after death. That was assuming one existed and if humankind met their maker. She found it hard to believe in the existence of a greater being. If one existed, why didn’t they step in and stop war, end terrorism…and the list went on.
“Fuck you!” she cried out, and tears fell down her cheeks. Faith, acceptance—these were for the weak.
Her eyes fell heavy and closed. The vision behind her eyelids waving and vibrating, pulsing. She was drifting off into a land where she was truly untouchable, when something banged against the wall behind her.
She sprang to her feet, then nearly swooning, she recovered, her head light from the whiskey and the room spinning around her.
The banging continued, followed by loud grunting. Another writhing pig. Likely with a hooker or some skank.
“Fuck this!” She grabbed her gloves and went for her bag with the handgun and grabbed the weapon. She tucked it into the waistband of her pants and let it sit under her shirt and set off for the neighboring room.
She pounded on the door.
A woman’s scream came from inside, the sound of faked ecstasy. Definitely a hooker giving her john what he paid for—a stroke to his ego and his dick.
She smacked the door again, and it swung open.
“What the hell do you want?” The man would top the scales at well over three hundred pounds. He barely squeezed into his white briefs, his tub belly obscuring the waistband, and he had the face of a gnarled dog. His fingers were stubby and fat like the rest of him, but the sniper’s eyes shot to the gold band.
“Shut the fuck up and back up!” she barked.
“Why the hell should I—”
She drew the handgun. Not another word was needed. The man walked backward into the room, the sniper moving with him. Once inside, she closed the door with her foot.
The woman screamed again—sounding more genuine than before—but this time, it was out of pure fear. The sniper had no real interest in her, but she couldn’t just let her go, either. Not now.
“Both of you, get on the bed, lace your fingers behind your head.”
Tears were pouring down the woman’s cheeks, and she seemed oblivious to the fact she sat there completely naked.
“You’re married,” the sniper spat in the direction of the man.
“What’s it to you?”
The man sure was cocky for facing the business end of a gun. Perhaps the afterglow of sex had him feeling invincible. His ugly face was glaring at her, his mouth set in a challenging grimace.
The sniper glared right back and pulled the trigger.
The woman started to scream, and the sniper fired again.
Finally…silence.