Through the scope of my rifle, I could see them shuffling down the main road, scarce supplies in tow. The woman sported a raggedy gray backpack and walked with tired, heavy steps. The man, brandishing nothing but a large knife at his hip, dragged a child’s wagon full of smaller bags and loose goods behind him. The two of them were certainly a strange pair to find out this way. I thought if not a couple, then siblings at the very least. I watched the way she hovered around his shoulder and occasionally slowed her pace to make contact with him in any way she could. His attentive demeanor as he ran his fingers through her hair when she would do so. These folks must not have been out this way before, maybe they don’t even know where they are. From the overt fatigue in their movements and mannerisms, it seemed they’d been traveling along the interstate for a considerable time. It would be a safe bet to assume they were migrating for some odd reason, as anyone who finds themselves shacked up in this area knows to stay well away from the metro outskirts and even more so this particular stretch of highway.
Young and stupid, I thought. A carelessness in a world that punishes stupidity with death and, for her, likely much worse than that. They must be a particularly desperate pair to brave the distance they’d likely already traveled. Giving a brief consideration to the hardship they’d likely endured and survived together, I set my rifle down in the grass and returned to considering other options for scavenging. I wouldn’t murder or steal from this wayward couple. They’d been through enough, I was sure. I would eat when the sun fell regardless, there’d be no utility in cruelty here. However, as I began marking a few places here and there on my map, I heard a woman’s scream in the distance. Young and stupid, I thought. I quickly repositioned myself in the grass and took a peek at what was happening.
Before the young couple loomed two men, one large and one scrawny, each armed and outfitted very well. The broader man wore road leathers with metal plates soldered here and there and held a pump-action shotgun about his waist. The absolute state of filth he was in acted as a clear indication of hostile intentions. There was little thought in the brute’s skull aside from violence, I was certain. As if the goofy road warrior getup hadn’t already given it away. His partner in crime dressed similarly, though his leather jacket lacked sleeves and his clothing was not childishly plated in scrap to create the illusion of greater protection. For a moment, I found amusement in their likely “brains and brawn” partnership, though I quickly lost my ability to humanize these men as they made their advance on the young couple. I could not make out what was being said, but it was assuredly a robbery and likely about to be much worse than that.
The scrawnier fella stepped forward to meet the young man who stood standoffish in front of his terrified woman. She clung terrified to their livelihood packed into the back of a plastic wagon. He had a stern look on his face, the look a man ought to have at his age if he had any hope of surviving in this bloated corpse of a world. I knew that it would not help him now. Young and stupid, I thought. The little bandit, brigand, raider- whatever silly name he’d likely call himself in preference to animal- pulled a revolver much too girthy for his scrawny wrists from the back of his pants. He pointed it at the young man and, without hesitation, shot him in the chest.
The young woman’s screams were guttural. Even from the distance I sat away, I felt her anguish ring in my ears and settle like a toxin in the base of my spinal cord. I steadied my rifle. I could not kill this couple, but I could kill these savage mongrels after they’d done the deed for me. It was cruelty, yes, and not a cruelty I was particularly accustomed to. I knew though that with whatever this couple had stowed away in that pack and wagon- in addition to whatever these murderous savages had on their persons- I would likely be unbothered by the need to scavenge for weeks.
The young man writhed and gargled on the ground, and I could feel nothing but regret during every moment. Such is life, unfortunately, I told myself. This is just how things are, I told myself. Young and stupid, I thought. The slimmer bastard stepped over the young man to meet his gaze. These freaks get their kicks from making shit worse for folks, this I knew. There was no necessity in this act of cruelty. It was simply cruel for the sake of cruelty. The young woman’s screams were like wasps nesting in my skull, each one carrying up the hill and into my ears as a sort of proverbial punishment for my continued complicit evil. I so desperately wished these animals would get it over with. Of course, certainly not to my surprise at least, it seemed the two men wanted more from this woman than her life and supplies.
Through the scope of my rifle, their lives in my hands, I saw the two men advance on the poor young woman with a terrible swiftness. As one of them straddled her chest and held her arms, the other got to work on tearing away her clothes. Her screams only worsened, her face wet with tears and the blood of her lover. I could have ended this before it ever became a tragedy. In an attempt to spare myself some labor, I had directly allowed for this terror to be born. I was simply letting it happen.
“Oh, God damn it all.” I exclaimed as I steadied my rifle and took aim. I had hoped for a cleaner exit from this sorrowful bullshit, but the current course of events was not an option. I didn’t want to take the chance of killing the woman beneath the skinny one, so I focused my sights on the broader fella now pulling her tattered jeans around her ankles. With a deep exhale and a pull of the trigger, I emptied his skull into the dirt. A satisfying shot, I’d say. The pop and drop when you bag one of these psychotic freaks make it well worth the expended ammunition. His scrawny compatriot scrambled off of the woman in terror and hit the ground as he clutched his revolver. Did he think I couldn’t see him now that he was on the ground. . . still out in the middle of an open space? Was he not even going to run in zig zags toward the tree line or something a little less silly? Duck behind the little red wagon? No desperation to save his own hide whatsoever, or not enough brainpower? I remembered a spider I’d seen once as a boy. It covered itself with dirt at the head to try and hide from me as I poked at its legs. My brother told me that the spider believed that if it can’t see me, I can’t see it. I saw the man for what he was, lying on the ground, revolver pressed so hard against his chest it’d likely left a mark. He was tantamount to an insect. I’d never seen that level of incompetence in my life. It was almost worth an ounce of my pity, at least momentarily, before I bore a .308 into his ribcage.
His was a scream you absorb, a scream that you take pride in giving birth to. It melted away any fuzzy emotions concerning what had occurred down the hill. Music to my ears. The hubris of man is so paper-thin against a bullet in the lung. With that, I packed up my rifle and headed down from my nest toward the road. It didn’t take but a few minutes, further bubbling up those feelings of regret as I finally stood over the young man’s corpse. Still kicking, gurgling, and grunting, the scrawny man had begun to drag himself toward his partner’s dead weight. I saw the determination in his eyes. The raw animal instinct of it was truly fascinating. I watched him crawl a bit longer than I should have. There was an instinct about his struggle, not to survive, but to at least take me out with him. He was crawling for his buddy’s shotgun. An insect on its belly in the dirt. He’d have had a better chance of maintaining any semblance of dignity he might have had if he just covered his head in dirt and hoped I couldn’t see him.
“Hello, little spider,” I said, stepping between him and the shotgun. He gazed up at me with that fiery determination. I hadn’t seen such hatred in a man’s eyes in over a decade. It was the same hatred I’m sure he’d imparted to the young woman cowering behind her plastic wagon. I wondered how he’d reconcile that if he’d savaged her, how he’d have felt about that glare before he ultimately snuffed it out. I figured he wouldn’t have put much thought into it all. I prayed that God would make him. “Bad catch today, huh?”
He opened his mouth to spit some obscenity at me, but before the last vowel of the first word left his mouth, I raised my rifle and put him down. As the contents of his skull rushed out into the soil, I took a bit of solace in the slight correction of my mistake. That buzzing regret had taken a backseat to the catharsis of justice washing over my mind. Yet, in the back of my thoughts, it remained just the same. From behind the plastic wagon, its dull brick red livened with streaks and splatters of glistening crimson, I heard the labored breathing of the young woman as she rose to her feet with her backpack in hand and tried her absolute best to limp away. It seemed that during her tussle with the two men she had sustained some sort of ankle injury and now sobbed in hopelessness in her attempt to flee. I followed her with restraint for a moment. I had no intent of exacerbating the shock she was in, so I figured I’d let her limp it out. Once the pain in her ankle had grown to be unbearable, she gave in and dropped to her knees, still sobbing in what she assumed was likely the last few moments of her life.
I stood not far from her, maybe ten feet at most, but dared not approach her further. I was, in that moment, at a loss. Killing bastards was simple. Robbing people as chivalrously as possible was light work. This was another beast in its entirety. I’d not been alone with a woman in years, let alone one sniveling and sobbing in shambles on her knees. I wondered what aspect of this image the two highwaymen found arousing. I thought again about my brother and his reassuring tone as he taught me about the world.
“Did you know that a lot of the time, when spiders mate, the girl spider will eat the boy spider when they’re done?” He’d said, a stupid grin on his face as he knew all too well how goofy he sounded describing spider sex. “It's so common that some spiders have evolved ways to lessen the likelihood they’ll be eaten after doin’ it.” I wished he’d taught me more about people than bugs.
Despite the appalling sight of this woman’s terror and helplessness, I suppose one who runs on instinct only sees the arousal of sticking his dick in anything warm. Beneath the eyes of God, the proverbial lady-spider’s fangs just overhead, these two just had an impulse reaction to fuck I guess. Little thought about it, little human about it. Insects, the lot of them. I took one final glance over at the skinny man, his skull split open in the dirt. The circle of life took no time at all in pulling him back into rotation, flies and insects creeping and crawling about the cracks in his skull and the grooves of his brain matter. The sulking predator is now to be picked clean by maggots and vultures, a fitting end. As above, so below.
“Are you done?” I said callously, the woman quickly twisting around to meet my gaze. She leaned back on her arms and made these pathetic little kicking motions as she did what she could to crawl away from me. “Relax,” I said as warmly as I could muster “I’m not gonna hurt you.” I thumbed out the corpses on the ground behind me and gave her an out-of-touch grin. She didn’t receive it all that well from the scowl on her face, but she stopped sputtering and scampering like a panicked rabbit at the very least. Still laid out on the ground, her ankle giving her too much grief to stand, I realized she’d ditched her pants to try and get away rather than wasting her time putting them back on at the risk of her life. Her legs were pale and petite like the rest of her, though they were scraped and muddied along with her underwear now pulled tight up above her waist and dug into her crotch. I averted my eyes to offer her some decency. I muttered “Hold on a second.” and took a few steps back toward the wagon and snagged her pants off the ground. Thankfully they weren’t too torn to wear, so I kneeled in front of her and set them in her lap. She gave me a different glare as I knelt waiting, one I figured was her way of telling me to stop staring at her and give her some privacy to get dressed. I shook my head knowingly and stuck my arms up in apology as I turned around.
With the last jingle of her belt buckle and the noise of her zipper, I turned back to face her and found her standing with all her weight on her good leg. She stared past me unblinking at a downward angle into the dirt. I thought for a moment she had entered a different type or stage of shock, one that I genuinely was not prepared to handle. God forbid the girl go catatonic and I have to haul her around like a piece of furniture. I followed her gaze to the young man’s legs sticking out from the front end of the wagon. I stepped into it to block her view. She looked away quickly, maybe in shame or disgust, I couldn’t tell. The look on her face was at least expressive. I was thankful she hadn’t shut down at least, there was no way I could just leave her there. I certainly wasn’t fond of the idea of “mercy-killing” her, though it seemed preferable to whatever horrific shit she’d be subjected to out here on her own.
After a couple of minutes of awkward silence, she stared into me with fresh anger. Her eyes bore into my own, shattering the windows to my soul and invading my inner peace. I didn’t like that look. “You shot these fuckers from up there, right?” she spat, pointing up toward the hill I’d made my nest on.
“That’s right.” I said sternly, maintaining that intense eye contact she’d offered me little escape from.
“So why didn’t you do that forty fuckin’ seconds earlier?” She wasn’t engaging in hypotheticals, she demanded an answer. She was asking me straightforwardly why I seemingly watched her husband die and subjected her to an attempted assault. She’d caught me red-handed. That buzzing regret forced its way back into the front of my thoughts.
“I, uh, I’m sorry about that, really. I was close by, but I didn’t come over the hill until I heard the gunshots and the screaming.” I spewed that lie with an embarrassing meekness that made my stomach crawl. She had me dead to rights and without any recourse other than wanton animalistic violence to resolve the position I’d been put in, I stared at her like a deer in headlights. I was frozen, waiting for my half-assed excuse to be enough for her to drop it. I felt there was little hope left for the building of a rapport. Her stare only intensified until I felt it might burn through the back of my head as she looked right through me. Defeat seemed to settle in though, the hopelessness of it all. Her hateful expression dropped and she averted her eyes back to the ground.
“Okay.” She softly peeped. I felt a bit of relief with that, though there was a lingering sickness in my gut. My thoughts were thrown about by the jarring buzz of shame against my skull. More silence filled the space between us like a physical barrier. It seemed to fill the air so completely that it snuck into my throat and filled my lungs. I could not muster a word for a great deal of time. We stayed there deadlocked for what could have been half an hour or just ten minutes, dilated by the weight in the atmosphere. I scanned the scene around us again and again, taking in that she stood a paltry ten feet from the corpse of the man she loved. Likely the only safety she’d ever known now lay forever motionless around the end of the wagon they’d carried their belongings in less than an hour before.
Finally, I mustered the best offer I had on the table. I hoped it would be a good enough gesture to give her some semblance of hope for the future. “Look, uh, I’ve got a place set up not too far from here. You’ll need somewhere to process all of this before I can cut you loose in good conscience.” It was like talking to a brick wall. She simply continued to stare at her feet. “I won’t ask anything of you, I won’t touch you. We’ll take your wagon and you can eat your food. I’ll eat mine.” She remained unresponsive for a moment before she brought her backpack around to her chest and squeezed it tight.
“Alright, but I want to take James’ body with us and bury it. Can you do that for me?” The look she offered me now was soft and empty. Her eyes spoke a thousand words of grief that I transcribed by the hundreds with every passing moment they were locked with my own. It was a heavy feeling to share with her, but I did what I could to understand it.
I gestured to her ankle and then to the wagon. “I’m already going to have to haul you
around because of that ankle. You want to sit on top of him the whole way there?”
“God, no! No, I just-” She stammered as her eyes darted around in frantic thought. She couldn’t bring herself to leave him there, a sentiment I couldn’t really argue with. She looked back up at me with brighter eyes, a glimmer of hope arising at least for the moment. “Okay, then, we get back to where you’re set up and unload the wagon. Then you can come back for him, right?” The girl was practically pleading at that point. A desperation opposite that initial desperation to survive. Foreign to that desperation to drag my complicit evil out into the light. “I’ve got a few things in the wagon that I can do without, really! We were carrying more than enough for two! I can give it to you, I just need this. I can’t leave him here. Please.” The young woman begged with what little energy she had left. It couldn’t be helped. The trek from the grisly scene just off the road to my makeshift camp wasn’t a dangerous one, nor was it very far. I lacked the mojo to keep from caving, it seemed.
“Sure, sure. I’ll come back for him.”
“You promise?” she said, pitifully. Her eyes were wide and pleading, like a sad dog.
“I promise.”
