Long Runs The Fox
*The following is the opening chapter from the book-in-progress: ‘Death Egg’, a prognostication of the year 2076 and a collection of short stories about death fantasies.*
Everyone knows the face of Death when they see it.
The reckoning of being mortal is equal parts unforgiving tragedy and innate horror. Its distant touch alone is enough to haunt us for the rest of our days. When the soul leaves the body, it carries the hue of animation with it. Even a first timer could tell. She is no longer with us. Whatever her name is, she is seventy-five. The beeps of her vitals are sporadic and angry. Her grey skin has been well preserved over three quarters of a century. Every hair is silver, but she still has all of it. She is filled out, not bony like the usual suspects for deathbeds. The inevitable goodbye comes for us all, especially if it is too soon.
A menacing apparatus of medical hoses, wires, and beige plastic-metal handcuffs her to the sheets. A twitch of her eyelid leads us to believe there is still someone in there. She has the look of a postal worker in inclement weather, dead eyes in a warm face. There are an unusual number of spectators bedside to the reaper’s lab. They, many of ‘them’ wear unusual clothing. They appear official, too official for a private moment. The nature of their presence is punctuated by unintelligible insignia on their sleeves. Oppressive respirators and medical observation goggles obscure their faces. There is little real estate for independent movement. The room is inundated with these clones in plastic alabaster suits.
An ostracized contingent in civilian clothing huddles in the far margins of the room. By now it seems clear no miracles will occur. Gloved hands as cold as the feet of the near deceased grip handheld devices, thumbing in information at the speed of light. Their obsession of every movement thieves the grieving into the spectacle of a lifetime. Unlike the typical aura of vexation and poignant epiphanies, an amusement looms, curiosity boxes out remorse. Loved ones are in the minority, but the center of attention never notices, her consciousness is elsewhere. A malevolent set of noises emits from the apparatus, taking the place of her vitals. The room moves a collective step back as the bedridden body convulses with a streak of contortions. Another moment with those eyes fit for two coins.
A different realm-
Lush woodland area split open by a lonely highway. An eerie silence persists. There is something disconcerting about the beauty of untouched nature. The yellow brick road of asphalt is the only sign that man has ever been here. The only thing more out of place than the pavement is the eccentric twenty-something kicking loose gravel down the shoulder. SUNBEAM is etched in faded magic marker across her shoulder bag. Her brunette mane synchronizes with the wind. Colorful clothing clings to her anatomy, gaudy earrings dangle from her lobes, and she has on just enough makeup to forfeit any idea she could be homeless. A mind can only wonder what someone could be doing in a place like this.
Meandering through the isolated highways of Washington State is not for those with weak legs or short thumbs. Everything about her appearance indicates she is trapped in the seventies. Sunbeam is the type to fancy back of house staff over men with silk nooses and briefcases. The free love movement must have started charging, and with somewhere to go, and no reasonable way to get there, she is confined to the tried and true one foot in front of the other. A whimsical smile lurks between her cheeks in the place of indignation. These unfamiliar circumstances fail to burden the wanderer. This is a pilgrimage for the soul.
She hears it before she sees it, refusing to turn her head to acknowledge the light colored Volkswagen Beetle now parallel to her being. An awkward dance between human and machine ensues, one always slightly in front of the other. The Driver, perplexity in his voice, eviscerates the hum of the wild. ‘’You lost? How’s about a ride? It’s sixty miles to the next town.’’ The seasoned leather boots come to a halt. A genuine pause, the fabric of time slows, as if all living things took a hiatus in this instance. She smiles for reasons only she understands. Without getting a good look at her suitor, she makes way for the passenger side. With a slam of the door, they are off.
The bug is a shadow of the variation that rolled out of the factory. Its insipid tan paint is peeling and rusty. It struggles to perform its primary function, air condition is a fantasy and comfort is a myth. There is little use for a radio outside the domain of interceptable waves. Finally eyeing the Driver, who is near her age, she notices he seems nervous. He is dressed in an anomalous way for the state of his vehicle. While it is not a fine suit by the standards of the privy, the aesthetic is peculiar. Some may find him handsome, others would be unimpressed, but no one would question his motives. The Beetle pierces through an apparition of a mist. Driver is jittery like a bird. He fidgets, rapping his free hand on the dash. They both exchange glances, just never quite at the same time. Neither appears regretful, but topical conversation is elusive. Eventually, their faces meet for the first time.
‘’What’s a good looking fella like you doing all the way out here? What’s with the suit, you’re dressed like some kind of game show host.’’ Anxious chuckle by the Driver, he clears his throat before he responds. ‘’I’m actually a law student from Washington, we’re on break so I was getting out of town for a little.’’ Putting her finger to her lips, her eyes narrow, ‘’I don’t know, I can’t take you for a lawyer, you don’t look very trustworthy.’’ The stigma of confession conjures up the first sign of the malfeasance in his design. There is a palpable change in his demeanor, no more fidgeting, his body language tenses up. His fingers sink indentions into the steering wheel as he tries to keep his eyes on the road.
‘’Well, sure I do. You hopped right in the car with me, a total stranger, and it’s not like it’s a Cadillac.‘’ There is something All-American about his appearance, a watered down sophistication. His prosaic royalty falls somewhere in-between a Kennedy and a Rockefeller. As she cooks the thought, the Driver contemplates his own motivations. He reels in his heir apparent temper, maintaining the illusion of self-control, and once again they can be civil. They endure on, rationalizing their coordinates and pondering the concept of trust. Both passengers have words on the tongue, but the allure of the passing scenery keeps either from crafting a point.
The Driver’s left hand pilots the relic of the Third Reich lazily on the wheel as the other routinely jerks the shift stick. Sunbeam eases up, she seems unnaturally familiar with her bearings. Running her fingers down the side of the door, there is no intrusion where a door handle is expected to be. Peering behind them, her eyes dance over the backseat. An amalgam of peculiar items litters the back, burglary paraphernalia, clothing fit for ulterior climates, and a discarded cast. To the untrained eye, she simply catalogs and returns her attention to the road.
‘’So, where we heading?’’ She never breaks character as her gaze lays heavy on him. Men seldom, if ever, do anything out of the goodness of their hearts. More than well aware of this, a straight answer had better come sooner rather than later. Driver idles. His crank arm is overtly more forceful as he keeps the vessel in gear. Questions bother him in the way they did Oliver North. His tongue runs the gauntlet of his inner lip as his mind mills. ‘’I’m on my way to Utah, my girlfriend, well, one of them is there. Nowhere has ever really felt like home, but Mormon country is growing on me.’’ No obvious signs that what he spews is anything other than the truth.
‘’I didn’t figure you for a one woman man. Not that I’m sure such a thing exists. Nothing wrong with multiple lovers, only deceit can spoil the plot. It isn’t my business though, and to be honest I don’t care to ask if you’re open. We all have secrets.’’ Her sheepish demeanor puts the Driver at ease. Philanderers are always on board with women who choose not to ask the wrong questions. With the tension leaking air, Driver takes his turn scanning his red-blooded cargo. He keeps his eyes trained on her as he says, ‘’Sunbeam. I have to assume that’s a moniker.’’ She laughs in a plastic way. ‘’It’s a nickname my friends gave me, something to do with my sunny disposition, affability, ya know? They also said I illuminate whatever space I occupy, I don’t know about all of that. What do you think?’’
She throws doe eyes in his direction. Creeping in, ever so slightly, she removes the burden of her seat belt to liberate her radius. Driver tries to keep it steady, but warm flesh with painted nails is more distracting than any alcoholic stupor known to man. As her hand ventures across the threshold between passenger and pilot, the Beetle drifts slightly over and back across the double yellow lines. In a spiderlike fashion, her digits tap on his thigh. Driver inhales deeply, forwardness has him off his axis. His concentration is broken, he hesitates to indulge, and it seems he is unprepared for advances from a woman of this caliber. Routinely the aggressor, being on the receiving end does not suit him. Vegas odds have him as a control freak of the worst kind.
‘’Something on your mind? This is not what I was looking for when I offered you a ride. Not that I’m opposed, but a wise man warned me long ago to be wary of loose women.’’ Her hand firmly palms the meaty part of his leg. ‘’My mother told me never to get into a car with a stranger, yet, she went out with a new man every weekend. Do you take advice from everyone? Even those who don’t follow their own?’’
‘’Not necessarily, I pay attention to the mistakes people make more so than I do their sage advice. One thing I know for sure is, people will tell you anything but the truth.’’ Taking in the gravity of his statement, his guard drops for the first time since she entered the car. His voice is devoid of any moral authority despite being laced with a genuine tone. He radiates an aura of suspicion. He could be dangerous, real or perceived, a ‘beware of dog sign’ can be just as fearsome as an actual hound. Sunbeam is no novice to sketchy individuals. A street smart creature more at home among the trees, an old soul rattles inside her young exterior.
The dynamic of complete strangers, both lost in idiosyncratic ways, leads to an unalloyed moment of silence. Sunbeam’s hand returns to base, the wind of sexuality has blown right out the window. Philosophical discourse has a disarming habit of kneecapping animalistic feelings. Shadows pass through the glass uninhibited, dashing through the interior of the bug. The mood is different. They revert to the atavistic language of nothing. Wedged between oaks and pines that have grown for centuries, the car seems like a flea on wheels. The canopy is so thick that the rays of the sun struggle to make an appearance. Deeper into the forest, further away from civilization, wherever they are, it has a population of only two.
‘’You know my name, ya going to tell me yours?’’ He hears her, but his mouth refuses to open. His head has been darting left to right for the last several minutes. Driver is scouting for something. Sunbeam sardonically whistles at him, ‘’are we lost?’’ His facial expressions become sloppy. The trip long façade of being just another Good Samaritan is beginning to crumble. ‘’Theodore. Everyone calls me Ted though.’’ The Beetle has hung a solid fifty-five, but with Ted’s foot escaping the pedal, it is starting to lose steam and miles per hour. Ted’s breathing is uneven and uneasy, he is eager, his palms are sweaty and he clinches his tongue between his teeth. The light has not changed enough for his pupils to dilate the way they are. Levi blue eyes shapeshift into nickel sized circles of the abyss.
Ted is not like you or I. He is a case study of dreams unrealized, just another bastard son of Uncle Sam with a crooked smile. He practically foams at the mouth. Predatory animals make less threatening noises. Ted still appears human, inside him however, an archaic lust for blood hovers in the void of his conscience. Sunbeam counter-intuitively leans across the console, closing what little distant set them apart. It is as if she wants a closer look at quintessential madness, the nastiest specimen our defective species has to offer. Ted is nothing like you or I.
His eyes are no longer on the road. Those wafers of shadow hone in on Sunbeam. He has The Look. That Look, one of a jungle cat with an empty belly. Outside, they weave in and out of the imaginary boundaries carelessly. Sunbeam never flinches. Does she know? Then again, the madman changes but the story stays the same. Before the sun sets each day, there is a guaranteed interaction of the lowest form. No one can say for certain what broke us. Something came undone a long time ago, perhaps even the beginning, and we all became the descendants of inadequate beings. Ted lives as a paragon to this reality. His violence is a byproduct of simply not making the cut. The physical form of ill intentions hesitates. His face goes stale. His ruffled feathers dispense metaphorically as he fumes.
‘’Tell me your real name’’, he practically hisses. Most would look away, but a full-fledged hell-raiser like Sunbeam shoots him guided daggers. She lights a loosie that has been kept prisoner behind her ear. ‘’Georgann’’ she spews, accompanied by an elongated lung draining exhale. She spells it in the air with her index, ‘’Georgann Hawkins.’’ The monster reverts temporarily into a man. ‘’Bullshit! You’re lying, you can’t be!’’, he huffs. Rage contorts his body involuntarily. He is three fits short of a stroke. The chips are down, and the cards of a fragile ego are soon to follow. ‘’Tell me your fucking name!’’
Sustained theatrical drag of the last cigarette, Sunbeam could have broken Hollywood open, she was just a victim of the times. ‘’Karen Sparks’’ she says without question, the syllables drip off the tip of her tongue laced with venom. The revelation sends Ted into orbit. Sunbeam torpedoes the cigarette into the floorboard, Ted stamps around in a gamble. Sunbeam empties the mouthful of smoke squarely into his brow, his eyes shutter as they strain. ‘’You know exactly who I am. I’m Lynda Healy!’’, immediately followed by a slap to the temple. ‘’Donna Manson’’ she howls, emphasizing the vowels. Ted is squarely on the defensive, he can only drive with rudimentary attention. Perilously they rocket on consuming both lanes, Sunbeam picks up steam with each landed blow.
‘’Look at me! You never killed anyone, you only set them free. Better is it to be dead than to be stuck in a world of limp-dick boogie men like you!’’ Steadying the Volkswagen, Ted is finally in a position to launch counter attacks. ‘’You fucking bitch, you fucking bitch! I’m going to keep your head in my fucking trunk!’’ Ted throws his arm wantonly, landing a devastating blow to her chest. She latches on to his wrists with both hands, digging her teeth through layers of skin. Only pure adrenaline keeps him from screaming in agony. His other hand vacates the wheel to land dead center on her nose. The world goes black as she echoes off the headrest, but not without taking her pound of flesh. Madison Square Garden has not seen a struggle this compelling in a generation.
‘’Susan Rancourt!’’, she screams with a heart full of lead. Unintentionally, Ted’s foot bullies into the pedal, the sudden acceleration embellishes the vendetta. The dichotomy of the sides is obvious, but the scorecard is anyone’s guess. As the violence grows, a vicious whirlwind engulfs the guts of the Beetle, nothing is immune from the volley of limbs. Sunbeam is relentless in her invasion of the driver’s side. The hollow days she weathered for years culminates into bolts of fury in the form of fists. With each name her voice grows prouder, she dominates the airspace to ensure he hears them all. ‘’Roberta Parks, Brenda Ball!’’, she elevates from a roar to a high pitched scream, ‘’Janice Ott!’’ Sunbeam batters him without retaliation, recklessly flinging her body at Ted in any way she can to cause harm. Her fingers glow red with friction, the tears that occupy her eyes drop with an eleventh hour magic.
Sunbeam snatches her bag, she swings it like a flail, Polaroids flutter out of the mouth like butterflies with each connection. The ultimate experiment in survival rages on at the epicenter of a vortex of morbid prints. Glimpse into the abyss, hard feelings that never narrow and clips of murderous memories. We relive the heinous thievery of numerous pulses. He remembers every one, as does she. Neither relinquishes an ounce of pride or prejudice in their knuckles, telephone operators make less connections. With every point of contact, their struggle becomes more sinister, more sincere. Malicious intention is in abundance, they refuse to part with even a modicum of mercy, and they absolutely expect the same.
Sunbeam cocks back until her elbow graces cold glass. She hesitates for only a moment, but it passes like a lifetime. Four bony, bloody knuckles slingshot into Ted’s chin with knockout potential. He absorbs the blunt force trauma at face value. Defiantly, he spits a mouthful of blood in her direction. Painting her with dread, he returns the favor with unholy centrifugal force. Her skull ricochets into the window, emancipating the glass from its track. Her eyelids can no longer keep gravity at bay. The last thing she can discern is the car pulling off to the side of the road, and the all too familiar feeling of a head rush. She is out.
Letting go is unanimously easier than holding on. The cathartic acceptance of halos or horns is second only to walking the Earth devoid of idols. Why prolong the inevitable? Stay down girl, you tried. If Ted did not end this, cancer would in an even more insidious manner. You did enough damage to reconfigure his face. Perhaps that rocket to the fangs was enough to make him contemplate retirement. Your defeat is laced with honor, you made it anything but easy, and that was nothing short of a firefight. Resistance is the nectar of the free, going quietly is a coward’s charade too comfortable for the likes of a warrior like you.
The others never had a chance. You made it interesting Sunbeam. The Sunday morning headlines will forget you by the time the Macy’s Day parade rolls around, but Ted will drip spit every time you invade his pot-holed mind. Custer died for hubris, you will perish for justice. The fabric of existence holds the rebelliously righteous near and dear. You are forgiven already for your failure. While enough of the masses to elect presidents will never know the feeling, you gave it your all. They may not find your bones, but concrete and rebar could never cage your spirit. Wherever what is left of you is off to, the sorrow is lesser, bad memories permanently fade, and shadows do not run away from the light.
Asphalt is particularly abrasive to the touch. So much so, that dirt resembles the embrace of a mattress. He is unnaturally strong for a coward. The drag marks tell and incomplete story that has only an ending. Either rage or fatigue overcome him, they never make it to the green carpet. There is a primordial feeling about clinched fingers around your neck. With blood of his own missing, this is too personal for anything other than bare hands. Thumbs in this moment seem as if they were designed for corralling wind pipes. Utilizing Sunbeam’s absence from consciousness, he takes his time pushing her toward eternity. While such an act is frowned upon by anyone unacquainted to the thrill of killing, Ted never gave a damn about what anyone thought, only how they felt.
Blurry stars and imaginary colors permeate, the cause célèbre of sinister palms dedicated to destruction. How long has it been? Could it already be over? Where is the flash of life, the sequence of lucid memories from blowing out candles to rendezvous at midnight under the guise of being just friends? Legacies do not matter between the realms of the living and the dead. Ted operates as if he were part of some medieval aristocracy. Unfortunately for no one other than himself, this is simply not the case. He grunts with a withering rage as he goes for the coup de grace. The border between here and there wears thin.
The familiar chirps of panicked vitals revolve like lobby doors, the instruments hooked to the modern incarnation of Sunbeam whirl into a frenzy. The room almost erupts at her utterance of ‘’Denise Naslund’’, the first and only indication she is still capable of anything more than being watched. Her voice is rocky, weak and unabashed, ‘’Nancy, Wilcox’’ she pushes out, making the spectators question their sanity. A lateral reverberation of what is left of her heartbeat rings out. The unidentifiable dregs circle like buzzards on hind legs, crowding the bedside hip to rail. Nothing free is sacred anymore, if it ever was at all. Their fascination has everything to do with science, metaphysics be damned.
Not everyone has It. The same way not every sheet of glass is bulletproof. Most of us would already be getting cold. Even in the age of automation, the sharpest minds in lab coats cannot put a finger on the DNA of grit and its unequal distribution. An individual we can safely assume as the lead observer makes moves through a parting sea of clones. It is nearly impossible to confirm, but a confidence in their movements indicates they are traditionally in charge. A five foot five body clad in impenetrable alabaster material that hides any prolific physical characteristics presses a lonely button with conviction.
A colorless liquid dispatches from a nest space well above anyone in the room, filling a serpentine tube directly connected to the main event. Behind their one-way goggles, we can feel the intensity of their focus. An anonymous voice, one that feels familiar, but indiscernible, calls out over the frantic, fading beeps of consciousness. ‘’Remember your scarlet letter.’’ Judging from the lack of head turning, they must be speaking in a language only Sunbeam can decipher. The ceiling lights blink, muted gasps behind respirators. The body rocks on the sheets inhumanely as if it were on top of a wave. No one dares to take a fresh breath of electric air.
Sunbeam, the vibrant form, comes alive with not a second to spare before extinction. Her untied boot finds a home where Ted keeps his unwarranted children. As much about the shock of vitality as the acute pain, the chokehold is released. With a fresh lease on another moment, Sunbeam devours oxygen in his absence. It comes off as a false craving for intimacy as she pulls him close by the collar of his overcoat. Without a beat to recover, Ted has a new problem, thirty-two teeth an inch deep in the side of his neck. Unable to remain subhuman, The most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet wails at a decibel that carries for miles.
Sunbeam’s face is laced with the devil’s blood. She is anything but squeamish, she dons it as a badge of honor. In a desperate bid to avoid bleeding out, Ted dips his fingers into her sockets with violent efficacy, without begging, he is freed. Palm to neck, he absconds back to the Beetle. Once sheltered inside, he fumbles the key into the ignition, what is left of his power transfers into cranking it forward. The Volkswagen declines to respond. Paralyzed by disbelief, Ted stalls in solidarity. Disappointment, primal fear, and disproportionate anger course through his veins. The loss of blood forces him to second guess the perceived mechanical dysfunction. He tries it again verbatim. Same exact result, same exact reaction.
‘’God damn it!’’ he shrieks. Blasphemy is as futile as it is cathartic. Wasting precious bodily function, he pounds on the steering wheel vehemently. ‘’No,no,no!’’, he bellows like a child. Without the element of surprise by his side, Ted is every shade of useless. His left hand is no surrogate for stitches, and his actions are confounded. The cognition of a killer is mysterious by nature, but a wounded animal is most dangerous to itself. Ted simply does not have the time to contemplate the grave mistake he has made, not that he ever has before, but all his previous transgressions combined never cost him a nightmare sleeping or walking. Gambling against a foe that has cheated death with biblical ease, Ted harbors his delirium long enough to remove his scarlet stained overcoat, followed by his undershirt.
He wraps it around his neck to frame his wound, it instantly saturates with blood, the only thing he has going for himself is the absence of a bull. The mouth of a handcuff dangles from its twin secured around Ted’s right arm reminiscent of a pulp magazine detective. All is silent on the northwestern front. Ted gives the perimeter a once over. ‘’Where did she go? Never mind her, let the mountain lions tussle with that banshee.’’ Ted channels the wickedness he bartered residency in Hell for, vomiting vitriol over his murder-wagon, promising it a twin fate of Hoffa should it fail to obey the flick of his key.
Insanity has a loose definition by principle. For incorrigible reasons that are equally opaque, berating inanimate objects produces tangible results. Bundy is the happiest man to hear the monotonous howl of a combustion engine since its inventor. Despite being chewed up and spit out worse than bodega tobacco, the specter that haunts his black heart refuses to acquiesce without the consideration of going back out. Ted shakes similar to someone who knows the right things about the wrong people. Maniacs have a fetish for blood, just not their own. The acknowledgement that one got away hurts deeper than the incisions in his neck, pride is more valuable than freedom to the narcissistic.
The Beetle pulls off, tailpipe between its legs. Bundy’s expression would sour milk still in the utter. Like all the ‘Greats’, if you stay in the ring too long, someone will find a cure for your prowess. Anyone else would suffice to call it a day, but America’s rock star killer has nothing else to occupy a mind made of spare parts. RPMs climb as the scene vanishes into obsession. ‘’Melissa Anne Smith’’, floats through the cabin that doubles as a slaughterhouse. Ted practically gives himself whiplash flinging his concern to the backseat. No Sunbeam. The rear-view mirror is empty. ‘’Laura Aime’’, cuts through one ear to the other. Ted remembers every one, but he has his favorites. Has his disdain for the living finally snapped the last umbilical cord to his artificial ego?
The names linger which each reiteration, carnal destruction compounds with arcane motives. Capitulation has Ted feeling vulnerable. His ambition for anything other than escape has dissipated. The same wilderness that served as a backdrop to his atrocities now seems foreign. Thoughts of his cardinal sins consume him. His senses go dull, the feeling in his fingertips is neutralized, his taste rots to nil, his peripheral vision tunnels. Ted no longer hears the guts of the Beetle churn or nature’s communication. They start to come down like a blizzard. ‘’Carol DaRonch, Debra Kent, Caryn Campbell, Julie Cunningham’’, and there is no mistaking the voice, the voice beyond a shadow is that of Sunbeam. He flings the knob of the radio to produce amorphous white noise, but he only hears the names, only those names.
Ted’s focus is as broken as his moral compass. He neglects the duties of a driver as he battles internally to force out the manifestation of his crimes against humanity. Yet, they persist, ‘’Denise Oliverson’’ bounces around his skull, louder and more pronounced with each roll call. ‘’Lynette Culver’’ echoes out, he never wanted to forget, until now. The burden of each syllable weighs him down to the point he is crippled under his hysteria. Sunbeam’s voice gets closer. She drives every victim’s name with the vigor of a hammer. In-between bouts of psychosis Ted checks his six, and every other direction for his cannibalism of opportunity. Up ahead, a lonely, lowly figure stands tall in the middle of the road. It simply cannot be.
Sunbeam, weathered like an idea of someone, remains dead center in suspended animation. Ted forces out the same battle cry legions of soon-to-be-goners have bellowed out as prologues to the grave as he stomps of the gas. He points the hood at the perfect trajectory to end Sunbeam once and for all. She curls her finger in a taunting invite, prepared for the inevitable, she holds the line. Two-hundred, one-hundred, fifty feet and — The Beetle passes uninterrupted. A chronic feeling of dread fills every orifice of his being. No trail of blood, no crunch of bone, no dent in the fender, no fatality. As the surrealism overtakes him, the Beetle involuntarily slows. It disobeys the weight of his right foot. The shift stick locks into place as solid as the sword in the stone. ‘’Did you miss me?’’ Ted jerks around to see-
A gore stained Sunbeam sitting pretty in the passenger seat. There is no leisure for a man hell-bent on making ghosts. Before he can think, he takes a shot at her, which she catches with ease. With black belt finesse, she open hands his head into the wheel, cuffing his right arm to it simultaneously. Waving off double vision, he desperately yanks on the cuff to no effect. Cursing every jailer to his cause, Ted bucks around rabidly. It is the last stand of a captured man. No matter how forcefully he pulls, the metal is Tedproof.
His foot leaves the pedal, yet the Beetle thrusts on. Sunbeam guides the vehicle as she fends off his free arm. Ted spits the worst words in the English language into her expression. She perseveres with a maniacal grin while Ted sweats hypotheticals. As she has throughout their encounter of the hazardous kind, she responds to his angst with the names of his victims. Ted continues to jerk his right wrist with nothing to show for it. We no longer hear his wasted words. By the way his face moves we know he is pitching unlikely promises, but all we hear is ‘’Susan Curtis..Margaret Bowman..Lisa Levy..Karen Chandler..Kathy Kleiner..Cheryl Thomas…Kimberly Leach.’’
The Beetle rogues off the road, colliding with foliage and barreling through undeniably. Branches snap across the exterior, scrapping paint and tattooing dents. Breaking past nature’s defenses, they rocket straight over the scalp of a cliff. Gravity holds true, Sunbeam never leaves him alone as they meteor toward the glassy surface of a quarry. The impact of metal to water shatters the windshield, shrapnel pierces them both. They float only for an instant. Water is indiscriminate of the container it fills, immediately it begins devouring the Beetle, forcing the pair into the belly of the liquid beast. Last rites would be wasted on the twisted creature, and for what it is worth, Ted would wave them away as quickly as his state funded legal counsel. A demonic figure beyond and to the end, the nefarious organ congenital to a filthy few powers his defiance of accepting his fate.
He was a man who dedicated his life to finding his own defeat. The champ simply stayed in the ring a title bout too long. It is better to wonder than to get too much closure. If only Stephanie had loved him the first time or law school wasn’t so tough. Maybe if his father had stayed around or if public safety had succeeded instead of failed, things could be different. As they descend further into their aquatic grave, Ted’s odious remarks translate into bubbles racing toward the sun. The Beetle finally vanishes into the depths. Ted will die the way he lived, shrouded in darkness, this time however, from the outside pouring in.
Back to the Room-
Peace wears an ugly mask. Sunbeam cannot be killed, she was already dead. In the year 2076, your seventy-fifth birthday is tantamount to your dying day. Life no longer belongs to the living, it belongs to The Ministry. All sounds have ceased from the beige metallic behemoth. The collective room huddles around. The courage to be the first to speak eludes them all. Seconds cost minutes during an abdication of existence. Inaction morphs into the unbearable. The grey woman in the bed is slumped, unresponsive. There it is. The face of Death. A pack of the clones begins unhooking the litany of needle-nose tubes from her as the lead observer palms the railing. Acting human for the first time, she bows in an unceremonious pose of disappointment.
Before the clones can react, Sunbeam spews water from her mouth and nose, catching several of them off guard. Her mouth remains open, as her eyes close for the final time. The lead observer surgically removes her goggles. Her respirator cannot shield the epidemic of zeal branching across her face. Grabbing the nearest lackey with authority, she speaks at a volume that fills every ear in the room. ‘’Do you have any idea what you have just seen? You have all witnessed the completion of the first death fantasy!’’ None of them had any idea what that actually meant, but we would all know soon enough that it was more immoral than anything Ted Bundy had ever dreamed up.
