The Creeps World: Close Encounters Of The Serial Killer Kind

Highways of Kansas and Back

Chapter One

Young and Dumb

Based on True Events

Chapter One: The Highways of Kansas and Back

Young and Dumb

That summer was unusually uncomfortable in Denver. The weather had been up to 102 plus degrees and was so stiflingly hot with the sheer humidity; that you felt like you could mop up after yourself. Some days were so much worse than others. I had family from the South and have been down there several times. It felt exactly like a muggy Arkansas in August, next to the swamp marshes I had experienced when I was young. I had to get the hell out of here for a little while.

I was in my "almost twenties" around this time (nearly eighteen when this happened). I was always ready to go somewhere and up for anything fun to do outside of overworking myself to death. I already had a lot of past to put behind me, but at this moment in life, I was happy to spread my wings and fly.

Rules, what rules?

I wasn't exactly the world's best teenager, but not the worst either. So let's leave it there - I had a knack for finding trouble in my teens. Or trouble, as I say, always found me - either way. Trouble and I knew each other well. I was just at the stage where I wanted to break up with "trouble."

My Irish ancestry showed in so many ways I had yet even to realize I possessed; such courage and sassiness. I would have to learn to contain that magnanimous beast for the rest of my life as well as I could endeavor anyway. I was innately emotionally resilient, persevering, and fought hard for my means, but I was naive. I was also unapologetic and unprepared to the point that the gods must've felt pity for me and kept me safe.

I had just gotten a newer car that summer that I could put some miles on and wear off some of the tire treads. Set off to nowhere in particular. Anywhere but here (more like how I felt), and that was the whole plan - to get away. To see and experience something new.

It was a silver Lumina Euro edition, so a bit faster, but only a little. I had tinted windows and a clean interior I took pride in maintaining. Also, it was 'mine o' mine.' She had a blue interior with a green old-school analog dash, and I begged to change out the stereo. I "needed" loud tunes in my ride; it made drives much better. So I drove around to courses and jobs to make my bills, rent, and have some fun and a bit of excitement while I bumped down the roads.

I had been up to the mountains a couple of times, all over Denver, even downtown, to Boulder, Kittridge (well, that's what we called it back then), down to some parties in the Springs', Littleton, when I got the stereo, installed finally affording it; even on some roads without pavement to go fishing — mostly suburban areas for cleaning jobs I had, as well as house-sitting jobs.

So I was most definitely itching to drive; anywhere but home or to work.

I decided to head out toward Kansas one day and check it out. We never stopped longer than a rest break with my parents, so I wanted to see our neighbor state's mystic appeal of corn fields and biscuits.

Why? Well, no reason in particular, to be honest, other than my mom and I drove through a few times when we visited family over the years. Plus, all those rumors about the guy who made acid in his bathtub somewhere in Kansas had a dark allure as a dumb teenager.

It was always so beautiful driving through too. The people were so lovely, and it felt like the old-school farming Americana with white picket fences and sweet apple pies cooling in window sills we grew up knowing. You know the Midwest, the heart of America - kids playing in their front yards, riding bikes, wearing overalls with dirty knees, and all those muddy feet, catching frogs.