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Now he could see her in his mind’s eye, lying in the bed, making him swear to live on and help others.

  Tears kept streaming down his face. He thought it impossible to cry any more. How much can someone possibly cry?

  Again she came to him. He could almost feel her presence in the room. Having the feeling she was watching him do this cowardly act embarrassed him. Unable to go through with it, he lowered the pistol, looked at it and angrily tossed it away.

  He made a promise and he was going to fulfill it. Looking up again, he shouted, “Fine, I won’t do it. I won’t, but there better be something greater out there. I’ll do what you wish. I’ll honor your dying wish and not take my own life, but you better be right because living seems fruitless. There’s no meaning, there’s nothing for me here, but I’ll go forth. I love you, Karen. I love you, Beth.”

  Pine Valley, CA

  Charlotte’s head pounded and her body felt like it had been dragged for miles because it had. After knocking her out, Bob picked Charlotte up and fled the compound. The alarm Hope had sounded provided him a greater distraction than the Friday fights.

  The perimeter guard, an undisciplined knuckle dragger, left his post to go see what the commotion was all about.

  The guard’s dereliction allowed Bob to escape with Charlotte. He tossed her over his shoulder and easily slipped through the fence line and down the hillside.

  Many miles and hours were now in between her and Hope. What plans she thought she had yesterday were gone. In an instant it had all changed, and why? Because she had misjudged a situation and acted foolishly. How would she get back to Hope? How would she escape Bob?

  “My stomach is growling,” Bob complained.

  Charlotte didn’t respond. She sat in a patch of tall dry grass, with her hands bound behind her.

  “You’re a stupid fucking girl, you know that? You screwed this whole thing up.”

  “You told me he liked young girls. So when I found him and her, I thought he was doing something to her.”

  “Pretty boy Drew never touched a young girl; I just told you that to give you a reason to run away.”

  “You lied?”

  “Boy, you’re dumb.”

  “Why? Why did you need me and Hope to go with you? You could leave at anytime.”

  “I had thought about it for a while, but I knew I’d be walking out with nothing of value. Cash money is worthless, and unless you have a cache of guns, ammo or food, you’re pretty much broke. Nope, couldn’t happen. I waited for a sign for something to come and show me the timing was right, and guess what? You two girls come along. I said to myself, Bob, that’s your ticket right there.”

  “You didn’t need us. I don’t understand.”

  “Did I hit you too hard on the head, or are you really stupid?”

  Charlotte’s blood rose and her temper flared. “I should’ve put the knife in you. Had I known, I would’ve killed you.”

  “There’s that fighting spirit again. You may be dumb as a sack of bricks, but you definitely have a fiery spirit.”

  Charlotte leered at him; her nostrils flared in anger.

  Bob looked around, the sun was setting. He liked the idea of traveling under the concealment of night. “C’mon, get your little ass up. Time to go.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “We’re going to ole Mexico first.”

  Charlotte realized she needed to at least ask for mercy. “Please let me go. My sister, she’s only six years old. She needs me.”

  “Your sister is probably dead by now, best you forget about her,” Bob said, deliberately being cruel.

  Hearing that made Charlotte’s stomach churn. “You’re a monster.”

  Bob stopped, grabbed her firmly, and pulled her close. “I’m not a monster, I’m a survivor. And look at you, covered in blood. You call me a monster. You killed someone,” Bob said, reminding her that she was capable of barbarism as much as anyone.

  “I thought he was hurting her.”

  “You took joy in it, I saw you.”

  “I did not.”

  “You’re the monster, not me.”

  Charlotte knew she had to remain calm so she could try to persuade him, but again her temper was her worst enemy. She spit in his face and yelled, “I hate you.”

  Bob wiped the spit from his face and drew his hand back to smack her but stopped just short of doing it.

  “Go ahead, hit me,” she taunted.

  “No, I can’t. I want to, but I need you looking pretty.”

  Charlotte feared that comment. What did he mean? she thought. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “You’re my currency. I can’t damage my goods.”

  “What are you doing with me?” she again asked.

  “I’m going to sell you to the highest bidder the second I cross over into Mexico. They pay good money for white girls,” he said with a grin.

  El Centro, CA

  There were promises made, and Neal was about to fulfill one of those. He had found some time to rest, and it did make him feel better.

  He put on a change of clothes, brushed his teeth, trimmed his beard, and even combed his thick hair back only to cover it with a ball cap. Once dressed, he put on his tactical vest, holstered his pistol, and inspected the magazines, ensuring they were fully loaded. As he walked to the front door, he grabbed his rifle and exited his house.

  It was night, but he knew every step he’d have to take to get to where he was going.

  One thing he loved about the desert was the cool but dry evenings. The temperature during the day could be in the high eighties or low nineties but dip into the sixties at night. And then there was the night sky. When the moon was riding high, the stars shined with brilliance. This was a favorite sight of his and something he loved to share with Beth.

  Now he felt the cool air and looked up to see the stars dazzling, but the joy was lost on him. He felt numb, cold emotionally. Unless you’d lost someone close, it was hard to describe what he was feeling.

  He began his short sojourn towards Felicia’s house and was surprised how he felt once he made the first block. His body and health were returning. He hated that. He wished the botulism had taken him too.

  The three-block walk ended with him standing in front of Felicia’s house. Neal was instantly taken back to the day he was sitting on the front porch with Beth. How funny that in such a short period of time she was gone. How could that be? It all seemed so weird.

  He knew what he’d encounter upon entering the house. He could see it already. There wasn’t any doubt she was dead, probably lying in her bed. He just couldn’t imagine a situation where she’d be alive. She was too old and frail to have survived to this point.

  Even though he knew what was inside, he still had to go check. It was a promise he’d made to Karen, and not to do it would violate that pledge. However, what was stopping him was exactly the fact he’d have to see her corpse and have to go through with burying her.

  He took a deep breath and took the necessary steps to clear the stairs. He stopped at the front door and paused. “It’s going to reek in there,” he said. In his left cargo pocket he pulled out a large black bandana and tied it around his face.

  Satisfied that the smell of death would be kept to a minimum, he entered the house.

  Even with the bandana, a putrid smell seeped through. He stopped and readjusted the bandana, but there was no way he could tie it tighter. Instead he began to breathe through his mouth. Unable to see, he turned on his LED headlamp. The bright white light illuminated the living room.

  “Felicia?” he called out even though he knew he wouldn't get a reply.

  He walked into the kitchen and looked around. Sitting on the counter was the empty jar of peaches. On the small dinette table three bowls with spoons were in the exact spots where they had been left by Felicia, Karen and Beth. Seeing them made him heartsick as he thought about the last time they had been used. It was all so sad.

  From the kitc
hen he entered the short hallway.

  “Felicia?” he again called out.

  He passed the other rooms and went directly to the master bedroom. He walked through the open door, and there on the bed was Felicia. It appeared she had managed to change her clothes from that day, but the evidence of food poisoning was everywhere.

  He approached the side of the bed and thought about how he’d remove her so he could bury her. He’d rather not, but if he didn’t, he just knew Karen would haunt him.

  He untucked the sheet and mattress cover and pulled it over her. Dreading what he was about to do, he took a few deep breaths, put on a pair of gloves, and once he’d found the courage, he bent over and ran his arms under her body so he could lift her up.

  With his arms under her, he noticed she wasn’t cold like he expected.

  Her body moved, startling him.

  He put her back down quickly and focused his light on her face.

  Her eyes were open but not glazed over like he’d seen before on corpses. Ever so slightly she lifted her arm.

  She was alive!

  “Felicia, um, you’re alive?” he said, shocked.

  She opened her mouth a sliver, but nothing came out. Her arm again rose but dropped right away.

  “Let me help you. Have you eaten, drank? Yes, you need to drink water. You’re dehydrated. Let me get you some water,” Neal said, the beam from his headlamp darting around the room as he looked everywhere for water close by. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No,” she said, barely audible.

  He stopped and looked back at her.

  “No.”

  “Felicia, let me help you,” Neal insisted.

  She slowly shook her head.

  “All you need is water and more rest. I managed to survive and maybe you can too.”

  “Karen?” she asked.

  Neal’s frantic behavior stopped when she asked for Karen. He lowered his head and replied, “She and Beth didn’t make it.”

  Her hand crawled along the sheet until it found his dangling arm. She touched him and said, “Die.”

  “Yes, they died.”

  “Die, me.”

  “No, you won’t, not if I can help it,” Neal said, the urgency coming back.

  “No, me, die, please.”

  Neal was on his way out the door when he heard her. He turned and asked, “Are you asking me not to help you?”

  “Die.”

  Neal walked to her side and sat down. “Are you really asking me to let you just die? I can’t do that, I can’t.”

  She was weak, barely able to talk, but found the energy to clearly state her desires by showing him. Her thin and shaking arm grabbed a pillow and pulled it over her face.

  He looked at her strangely for a second; then it dawned on him what she was asking. He recoiled at the suggestion. “No, I can’t, I won’t.”

  She removed the pillow, opened her eyes and said, “Please.”

  “No.”

  She reached for him and touched his leg.

  Neal jumped and walked away from the bed. “No, what you’re asking me to do…I can’t do that.” Disturbed and upset, he stormed out of the room and went outside. He ripped the headlamp off his head and sat down on the same steps he’d sat on with Beth that fateful day.

  His mind spun with how he would handle this situation. Am I capable of killing her? he asked himself. He had killed before, but just recently, and that still freaked him out. However, killing two people intent on killing you was different than this. He understood the concept of mercy killing, but he knew Felicia. She was a good friend and motherly figure to Karen and treated Beth like her own granddaughter. Doing what she asked was like killing his own family member, something he had trouble seeing himself do.

  An hour went by in a flash as he struggled with the decision. He had three choices. He could just leave her to die naturally, he could attempt to nurse her back to health only to fail, or he could go in there and end her suffering. She clearly wanted to die, so any attempt to nurse her would be futile and only prolong her suffering. You couldn’t force people to eat or drink, and if her will to live wasn’t there, she would just die anyway—again taking him back to his first choice, just leaving. He began to weigh that option. If he just left, she’d die but suffer and he’d fail as a friend and fail Karen’s dying wish to help people, but was killing Felicia by suffocating her helping? Would Karen support that? He looked up and asked, “What would you do? Huh, tell me.”

  Another hour slipped by as he sat debating the issue. Maybe he’d go in and find her dead. He’d be off the hook, but she would have suffered waiting for his return. One thing he couldn’t escape was how he felt about himself. It was a reoccurring word that kept taunting him over and over. Was he a coward? Was he to blame for everything? Was it his inability to help Carlos that led to all of this? Was he now acting like a coward, unable to give a person he cared about her dying wish? If she wanted to die, shouldn’t he allow her that last bit of dignity, shouldn’t he allow her to have control over her last moments? Who was he to refuse that?

  The answer finally came to him. He had wasted too much of her time and his.

  With renewed confidence, he went to her bedside.

  She opened her eyes just above a slit and looked at him.

  “Karen and Bethie love you so much. You are a great woman and were a great friend to them. Thank you so much,” he said.

  She touched his arm.

  He didn’t recoil this time; instead he took her small hand in his.

  She rolled her head and closed her eyes.

  Neal grabbed the pillow, and without hesitation he covered her face and pushed down hard. Tears welled up in his eyes as he counted down. He didn’t know why he was doing that, but it seemed natural to have an idea of how long he was suffocating her.

  Tears fell from his nose and chin onto the pillow. “Ninety-nine, one hundred,” he said, then lifted the pillow off her face and checked her pulse and found nothing. She was dead, and by his hand.

  Neal carried her wrapped in her sheets and placed her in the shallow grave he’d dug in her backyard.

  He grabbed the shovel and was about to toss the first shovelful of dirt when he remembered her husband. Neal put the shovel down and went back into the house. On the mantel, a large stainless urn sat. He picked it up and said, “Let’s have you two rest together.” Cradling the urn, he took it outside and placed it next to Felicia and began the process of covering her up.

  It was a well-known fact to his friends that Neal wasn’t religious although he was raised Baptist, but Felicia was a devoted Catholic, so he felt it necessary to say a prayer. He bowed his head and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When he finished, he said, “I can’t believe I remembered that.” He exited the house via the side gate and somberly walked back home in deep thought over what had just occurred. In his years of being alive he had never harmed anyone. In fact, he had only been in two fistfights. Now within the span of a week he had killed three people.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Where there is no vision, there is no hope.”

  – George Washington Carver

  Ten Miles Southeast of Pine Valley, CA

  Bob wrapped his legs around the man and tightened the strap around his neck.

  The man gagged and frantically grasped at his neck in a desperate attempt to loosen Bob’s hold, but it wasn’t working.

  Bob knew he had him; all he had to do was hold on. With all his might he squeezed hard and pulled back with all his weight.

  The man’s eyes were bulging, and he turned blue, then snap. His head fell forward.

  Bob not only felt it but heard the man’s neck breaking. He let go of the strap, rolled off the man and hooted loudly. “Hot damn, that motherfucker was big.”

  Charlotte stepped towards him, a large wrench in her hand.

  “Look at you.” Bob laughed. He got to his knees and said, “Well, come on, try to escape again. Go for it, and I’ll just knock you on
your ass like I did ten minutes ago.” Bob was referencing Charlotte’s unsuccessful attempt to escape after they encountered the now dead man and his family on the road. Bob looked and saw the wife and two young kids were gone. He smirked and asked, “Did you let them go?”

  “Yes.”

  He got to his feet, dusted himself off and asked, “The question is why didn’t you run off too? I’m over here battling it out with this fucking giant of a man and you could have bailed. Why?”

  “Because I’m going to kill you!” Charlotte barked and lunged at him.

  He easily pushed her to the ground.

  She got to her feet and came at him again.

  He stepped aside and pushed her down.

  She fell hard on the gravel shoulder of the highway.

  “Charlotte, you let your anger get in your way. You could’ve run, but nope, you got so mad that you thought it best to get revenge. You wasted that attempt just so you could try to kill me. What a stupid girl.”

  “I hate you!” she yelled. She had thought about running, but the urge to see him die trumped her desire to escape.

  “Now get up and get your ass in the truck. I don’t want to be sitting on the side of a highway forever.”

  “No,” she said, scrambling to her feet and sprinting away.

  “Really? Now you’re just going to piss me off,” Bob said, chasing after her.

  Charlotte darted up an embankment but slid down and into Bob’s grasp. He wrapped his arm around her throat and put her in a rear naked choke hold.

  She punched and kicked, but it was no use.

  “Say goodnight,” Bob said as he squeezed hard.

  Charlotte struggled for a second before blacking out.

  He carried her to the truck and put her in. Before shutting the door, he bound her arms and legs and put duct tape over her mouth from a roll he found under the seat.

  “I thought we worked like a good team there, well, up until you opened your stupid mouth and warned those people. You know I blame you for him dying,” Bob said, rambling out loud as he gestured towards the dead man behind him. “All you had to do was keep your mouth shut; I didn’t want to kill that guy. Nope, all I wanted to do was steal their truck. We were a good team for a second; you had that sweet girl, ‘I need help’ look, and I show up and take the truck. Nope, no, no, you had to go do that. And the kids, you also cost me; those kids would have been perfect to sell.” He finished his last knot and shoved her over so he could close the door. “You’re more of a pain in the ass than you’re worth, but soon enough I’ll be rid of you. Now that I got a truck, all I need is food, and you’ll buy me quite a bit, yep, you will.”