The Courting

Nine

It was a massacre. There were a few he didn't kill; some because he couldn't make contact and some because--despite his best efforts--he couldn't bring himself to. They had either ducked away behind cars, or had run away. The men who were still alive were crying for their dead loved ones, and probably waiting to kill the driver behind the wheel of the car. Angelo didn't know what to do next. He drove the car through another block, away from the one he'd just passed. Away from the graveyard of corpses that now littered the streets.

Oh my God. The reality of the situation hit him like club blows. He was a lunatic. He was the mass murderer you heard about on the news, the psycho killer. It was him. He couldn't even throw up. He couldn't cry anymore. He didn't deserve that release, that luxury. He deserved to be as cold as a stone. That was, after all, all that psycho killers felt, wasn't it?

Kimberly said: "You really did it."

It brought him back and he looked at her numbly. He only nodded.

"Good," she said, but this time she sounded more hesitant, as if she too was aware that she was riding shotgun alongside a psychopath.

"And now?" he said, surprising himself with the ability to speak.

"Now I'm that much closer. And those bitches will never get in my way again."

Angelo nodded again. Gripped the wheel. So I keep going, he thought, feeling another band of sanity snap inside himself. He was no longer who he thought he was all these years, and he no longer lived in the reality he thought he knew. He spun the car into the next block and stopped before another row of people outside. It was dark outside, but the lamplights overheard and the headlights of his car allowed most of them to be seen. This group was more scattered, but their behavior was the same--shouting, dancing, fighting, and some weeping with joy.

"I want those smiles gone," Kim said beside him.

He winced. Then smacked his foot onto the accelerator. The tires scratched the road like a mad feline. Thirty--forty miles per hour--but after he had hit two people (a woman in her late-forties and what looked like her husband) the car lost control and spun until it crashed into a parked truck. Angelo and Kim were wagged around like plush dolls beneath their seatbelts.

When everything was still, Angelo turned to Kim. "Are you okay?" he shouted.

"Fine, fine!" she said. "Get me out of this death trap."

They unhooked their belts and Angelo helped her out the car. The whole front of the car was made into crumbled paper. The window on Angelo's side was smashed in, thousands of glass chips sprinkled on the seat of the car and on the ground outside. They didn't have much time to brush the glass and debris off their clothes though, because about fifteen of the surviving men and women that had escaped the wrath of Angelo's car were running at them now, about a block away. Some with weapons.

***

Luckily, it was night. They were two blurry shadows as they shuffled behind the rear of the truck, crouching.

"Run! Run, Kim!" Angelo ordered in a loud whisper, tugging her arm. She responded frantically. They both ran as the screams behind them grew more furious.

"There they are!" a man shouted not too far off. And now the rest of the neighbors from the block, who previously thought that the car accident was a mere accident, were shifting their faces to anger as well. They were surrounded. They would have to use the darkness to their advantage. From where he was, Angelo saw two viable options: They could either try jumping over the fence of the nearest house, and try breaking in; or they could try to stealthily walk in between the crowd of people who hadn't noticed them yet, blending in, and come out the other side unscathed before the mob found them. Angelo decided on the latter option, since the fence would cause too much attention and only hide them for so long. Plus, he already knew that Kim was a terrible climber. And he had to keep her safe. She was the priority; worth killing for.

Each time he thought of the word, it sent a brand new echo of torment to his stomach and chest, making him feel light-headed and nauseas.

"Follow me and keep quiet," he whispered, leading her by the hand.

They moved quickly into the crowd on the far side of the street. Most of them were women, and most were oblivious to what was going on, their heads outstretched to the black expanse above them.

But the mob was moving fast; less than a block away now. "C'mon, c'mon--hurry!" Angelo whispered, running and jerking her arm. She kept looking back and up and every way but ahead of her. They were in the thick of the crowd now, maybe not completely veiled, but it was the best Angelo could hope for.

"There he is!" a man shouted from the front of the mob. The others hollered in response, sprinting faster and gripping their weapons tighter.

"Shit," Angelo muttered, out of breath. He needed to distract them. He needed to divert their attention somehow. His head swung so swifty and heavily that he thought his neck might snap. Use your surroundings, he thought desperately. But there was nothing around him now except more stunned women, gazing upwards.

That's it.

"Hey!" he shouted, letting go of Kim's arm and grabbing another young women. She must have been only seventeen years old at most. She was pretty with blonde hair. She must have been quite a catch in her high school. But out here she was only bait. The girl squirmed at his violent grip and screamed. But Angelo wouldn't let go. He had killed many people already. His mind was already set on killing anyone who got in his way, because he needed to protect Kim. He muttered an apology to the girl.

"This girl," he said shoving the young frightened girl to the ground, in the middle of the crowd, "is trying to steal your Love from you! Kill her!"

Angelo didn't quite know what he expected. But he didn't expect what happened. At least not the way it did. The women--all whom had had their heads directed to the sky in an awkward position--suddenly darted their heads and eyes on the girl on the ground. A scream broke from their mouths. The most horrible sound Angelo had ever heard in his life. As if the women had all just experienced the most ripping, carnal pain in their lives. Their fingers twisted in their uprising hands like talons, and they were on her even before Angelo had time to point at the girl on the ground. The girl who was now crying, terrified as the first of the women leaped onto her fragile young body. Angelo felt a shudder of guilt pulse in him, almost worse than when he'd killed the others. Maybe because she was so young. So pretty. He forced the thought away and turned to get Kim again. But she, like the others, was running to attack the girl.

"No, Kim!" he shouted, pushing through the crowd. He found Kim and grabbed her. "I tricked them, come on!" he screamed in her ear. She looked at him and nodded. But before he turned away completely, he caught a glimpse of the young blonde girl. Or what was left of her. Her face was a wet, red bowl of blood. Like a soggy bread bowl. She was naked, her breasts settled flatly against her chest, consumed with deep scratches about half an inch thick.

Angelo turned away and ran with Kim. Angelo felt like dying. He wanted to turn himself in for all his evils and fold over and die. But he couldn't while Kim was alive.

His plan had worked. The mob got lost in the crowd. And soon, everyone lost in that crowd broke into a deadly fight. Screams and cries and fists broke in the night sky as Angelo and Kim ran further away, turning into the next block. And that's when Angelo saw it.

Felix's burned down house.

"Hey! Angelo? That you?" he heard Felix say from the window of another house next to his burned one. "Get your ass in here! It's a fuckin' war zone out there." He waved a rifle through the window. "I got your back, bud."

Angelo sighed relief and ran with Kim to the front of the house. He'd finally found a thin stream of hope. And in such an unlikely place. There was no way he could know that the hardest was yet to come.