The Food Mart always closed at seven on weekdays. There was one other car in the lot. It probably belonged to the guy who mopped and buffed the floors.
The lot’s lights had been turned off. I looked around for a red Mustang in the dark.
Was I imagining this AO character the whole time?
No. I could see being a little fuzzy on things after I’d been laid off, but AO had messaged me hours before that.
Twin beams of light exploded in my rearview mirror, blinding me for a moment. Once my eyes adjusted, I left the Lumina to see what was behind me, nestled under the lone tree that grew in the lot.
Holding my hand up to shield my eyes, I felt a sickening dread wrap its meaty fingers around my chest.
It was a red Mustang.
Someone had to have turned on the lights. I ran to the door, anxious to see who this AO bastard was and why he was tormenting me. My instinct was to bash his teeth in. It would feel good to let some of the emotional air out. I realized I hadn’t hit another man since college. I wasn’t young or drunk this time, so maybe the outcome would be better than my foray into midnight beer muscles in Gary’s Bar.
Shit, what if it was a woman? My nerves were so jangled, my anger riled up like a hornet, I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull back my punch.
I grabbed the driver’s door handle and yanked it open.
There was no one inside. New car smell washed over me.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, my words trailing off into the night air.
Looking back at my Lumina, I contemplated just going back home. A brief sparkler of pain singed the part of my brain that was behind my left eye. A rapid buildup of pressure made it feel as if it might pop out of its socket.
“Ow, ow, okay, I’ll get in.”
As soon as I sat behind the wheel and closed the door, the pain was gone. The relief was instant.
How was this possible? If it weren’t for the periods of relief between flash-bursts of misery, I’d think I was having an extended delusion…or an aneurysm.
But aneurysms didn’t make red Mustangs appear.
Unsure what to do next, I started up the car and waited. It didn’t take long for the Bluetooth screen to alert me of an incoming text to voice. The tone was comfortingly feminine, but somehow I knew a man was behind the words.
“Right on time,” it said. “Now, turn left on 302 and drive until you get to Wyndham. Once you cross the line, the online navigation system will take you the rest of the way.”
“I’m not killing Marcellus,” I muttered, putting the car in drive.
To my utter shock, the speakers blurted out, “Yes, you are! He ruined you and others today. People like him have come to the end of the line. You’re going to make things right.”
I just made the light, passing the gas station and heading east to the town of Wyndham.
“By killing a man?” I said. The car must have been bugged or something.
“By making things just.”
“I’ve never killed anything before, other than some bugs and spiders. You picked the wrong pony for this.” I didn’t mention the pet newt I’d let starve to death, its body fusing to the rock, when I was ten. Death by neglect didn’t constitute murder.
I drove past the drive-in, recalling how thrilled we’d been to go there for the first time when we moved up here. I hadn’t seen a drive-in since I was a little kid. I’d thought there weren’t any left. We’d been to it several times since. Katie loved being able to watch a movie outside in her little folding Disney princess chair. Candy and I had felt like kids ourselves.
As I crossed from Bridgton to Naples, I slammed on the brakes. There were no cars coming from either direction on the long stretch of road.
“I’m not doing this,” I said. There was no way I was going to throw my life away just because some phantom lunatic was telling me to kill my boss. I’d lost my job. So had a ton of other people all across the country. We’d find a way to get through it. As long as I had Candy and Katie, nothing else mattered.
“You have to.”
My eyes rolled in my head and I could no longer see the road. My brain was flooded with images of Marcellus. I watched him cook the books with our CFO, have multiple affairs, delight in the misery of others, abusing his power in his little fiefdom. I saw the monthly report his assistant provided, updating him with any negative news culled from social media on former employees. I could feel the thrill that ran through him when people he’d fired or had quit fell on hard times. Asshole. When the vision stopped, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t control the swell of anger threatening to burst from my chest.
“That’s why,” the voice said from the speakers.
I floored the accelerator, blazing through the Naples Causeway, not giving a flying fart if there were any speed traps.