young blood
I envy them, the ones she wounds. The boys she bites. Their random belongings roll around the floor of the backseat. Car keys and wallets, trinkets and shoes. Not cellphones, those can be tracked when they’re off. Rabbits’ feet. The lucky rabbit’s feet get away. I should get this stuff out of here.
I pull over to a municipal garbage can and drop in a bloody sock. Have to spread it out. I have some time to kill. People don’t really hitchhike that much in the Northeast. The Northwest is better. Montana is the best but there are more people here. Less people there, more easily missed.
I stop at a diner and drop a shoe in the trashcan. I shake it first to make sure it’s empty. I grab a paper and a corner booth. It’s 3 a.m. so they only serve breakfast. I get a nice little old waitress and talk her into a Monte Cristo. The police blotter in the paper is thin. A few muggings and some bounced checks. Not encouraging. If a bounced check makes the paper a missing person could be a big deal. Those slow parties advancing through fields with the string and the little flags.
I know with this one, though. I scouted. Every night when he got off work the same road the same thumb swipe. I passed him three nights. The people at his job warned him. He said they did. But he got to meet so many more people this way. It might get him killed, he said, but living gets you killed. Stale, but she laughed.
The food shows up. I’m surprised how hungry I am. Wasting away, I forget to eat. Sports scores. Sitcom rerun on the TV in the corner but the closed captioning is off. Have to head back soon, sunrise at 5:23 a.m.
I make a few stops on the way, tossing out torn t-shirts, hopeful condoms still in the wrapper. This one got out easy. Off into the forest. Come on, it’s this way, she says, and he follows her between the trees.
And then always I drive back to the spot. She’ll be standing against a tree looking drunk, full-bodied, red like a swollen tick, dull eyes. I’ll walk past her with the axe and he’ll be laid out, a husk. Brittle. The blood gone, the mucus gone, the marrow gone. I’ll break him up like wood and scatter the crumbling pieces. Some I’ll bury, some I’ll throw at tree trunks and watch them shatter like apples. I’ll take her to the motel for the light hours and hold her and she’ll be warm with his blood. Happy with his blood.
At midday I’ll slip out and look for somewhere to burn the clothes. The next night she’ll have come down some, like the days after a rainstorm when the air is cleaner for a little while. These are the best days. And I can watch the papers and see if we can stay or if it’s time to go. And if we stay I can scout again for her, I know what she is looking for.
This time is different, though. I pull up and she is hidden by the trees. I take the axe and head into the forest, looking for the red on the grass, but none is there. She steps out from behind the tree and she is pale as the moonlight. I hear another set of steps. He doesn’t know how happy I’ll be to make her warm. To give her what she needs at last.