Destination 1974

Chapter 8

|I'm trapped, yet the cage is wide open. |

~***~

I tug my jacket as the cool breeze bites my skin and blows my hair all over the place. I button up my jacket as Clyde and I pass a short man in forest green tight pants and a pointed hat.

"Are you hungry?" Clyde asks as we approach a hotdog stand. I nod while my focus is on my frostbitten fingers as they fumble with the last few buttons. I glance up to watch Clyde as he's speaking to the man selling hot dogs. There are colourful lights decorated with the buildings throughout the boardwalk, and they're also spiralling up the lamp posts. I finish with my last button and instantly shove my hands in my pockets to keep them from being exposed to the cool night. Clyde passes me my hotdog, and I sigh bitterly as I reach for it; taking my hands out of my warm pockets and exposing them to the cold again.

"Would you like a hot chocolate? You look a little cold," Clyde suggests before taking a bite of his hotdog. I put ketchup and mustard on mine in silence, and nod to him as my only response.

"Want some?" I ask while holding out the ketchup and mustard. He shakes his head and then adjusts his posture before turning to backtrack towards the hot chocolate stand. I follow behind, stuffing my face with the hotdog and flinching as some excess ketchup plops on the pavement.

After getting hot chocolate and sitting at a picnic table, Clyde asks, "So, what're we doing here again?"

"As I said before, I have a potential lead here --"

"-- Yeah, you said that about the last couple of places we went to," Clyde takes a sip of his hot chocolate, and lifts his eyebrow at me with a knowing look.

"Look, I never asked for your help --"

"Is there something you're not telling me?" for a moment, my gaze casts to the dirt, and he catches it, "there is something you're not telling me."

~***~

Mona found herself counting the mailboxes after being on the road for too long with Clyde. Every pit stop for food and/or gas, he would urge her to call her parents, but as he would walk into the store, she would walk away from the phone booth and not waste a cent on them. They always seem to be a step behind the action as more murders are taking place right under their noses.

Days have gone by without a single thing to be solved; just the way they want it to be:

"Back to the howling old owl in the woods

Hunting the horny back toad"

At thirty-seven mailboxes, Mona stops counting:

"Oh I've finally decided my future lies

"Beyond the yellow brick road."

only because they started to repeat after a while:

"What do you think you'll do then"

"I bet that'll shoot down the plane"

Birds chasing each other in a game of tag around the trees they pass by:

"It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics"

"To set you on your feet again."