Layne Damaged .ch3.

Little did John know that in Little Rock, I would finally strike out. He was in a happy moment courtesy of whiskey and a touch of cough syrup. So as he walked carefully from the car to the bathroom, I leaned against my car and surveyed the area. I filled the tank and rubbed red lipgloss across my lips. I saw a guy my age, maybe a little younger, and he was airing up his front tire. His hair was black and messy; his shirt was soaked with sweat.
I smiled across the parking lot. I closed the gas cap and looked around for cameras.
"It's a hot one," he called out to me. "Isn't it?"
"Sure is. It was 104 earlier."
"You from around these parts?"
I thought. Maybe I sounded a little different from the locals.
"I've got family here, so I'm passing through to visit," I lied as he approached. "Me and my brother."
"I'm staying this summer with family, myself. Right now I'm about to get this piece of shit towed home," he said, gesturing to his car. It was a Mustang and it had seen many crashes, I thought.
"I'm Layne," I said.
"I'm Corey," he said, reaching to shake my hand. "If you're in town this evening, you want to get a drink?"
"Sure," I said. "Preferably beer?"
"Hell yeah," he said, pulling his phone from his jeans pocket. I felt antsy as John would surely come out of the bathroom at any moment. *I have to do it.*
"I'll put my number in," I said as he handed me his unlocked phone, clicking on the settings and turning off his location. "You can text me."
He smiled and took his phone back, not glancing at it as he put it into his pocket.
"Alright, well, I'll see you later then, Layne?"
"Definitely."
As Cory turned to go back and tend to his car, he didn't see my nervous fingers grip the mini-pry crowbar from where it rested atop my tire. Above my head and into his, it crushed a bone with yelp and fell back into me.
And in a blur, I popped the trunk and smashed him once more across his skull.
*Oh, God, here comes John* I thought as I looked at the unconscious or *hopefully dead* man in the trunk.
"I'll be back," I whispered.
Grabbing my deodorant from the trunk and waving it at John as I slammed it shut and we got back into the car.
"It's hot as hell," John said, his voice soft and slow and slurred. "You're shaking."
I looked at my hands as they gripped the wheel. He was right. But he hadn't seen the blood splattered on my thigh, which I quickly rubbed away.
"Yeah, because it's hot," I confirmed flatly.
We turned the music off and we fled the scene.
The stretch between Louisiana and Missouri included the flat and bland roads of Arkansas but I knew I would never remember a moment of Arkansas as dull. The few spikes we saw made it worth it to John and the sun beat down so hard I could feel a tan imprinting itself on one of my arms and part of my thigh. I wanted to drink out of sheer boredom, though the idea of veering off highway and smashing my car into a cow made me decide to wait.
Especially with a body in the trunk.
John was further than tipsy.
"I need to go to a stop," he said.
"That was quick."
"Well yeah but it's going happen either way."
I pressed the pedal and we hit 85 mph. John needed to stop and I needed to get Cory out of the trunk.
"I'll pull over by the trees. You get out and go, and then I will.
John agreed and before I even came to a stop, he was pushing on the door.
"You have the child safety lock on," noted as I parked on the roadside and unlocked the door.
I tried to steady my breathing as John got out of the car to tend to his business. He was going to need to take a break from the inebriation for his health and because it was *my *turn* after all of this I've gone through. But at the time, his confused state was monumentally beneficial.
He jumped back in the car.
"Done. I'm tripping, Layne. I heard the car knocking."
My heart sank.
"Knocking?" I gave a phony laugh. "I've got to piss, just stay here. I'll see if there's any knocking."
John laughed and I got out of the car, immediately popping the trunk.
"Let me out, oh God," the sad voice said to me. Cory was still alive.
"I will but you're not going to like it," I said. Within seconds, my fishing knife tore across his throat and I yanked him from the trunk, struggling against his weight, and left him bleeding in the grass by the highway.
As I closed the trunk and got back into the car, I wiped blood across my black shorts. Some was on my thigh.
*Oh, shit* I thought.
"No monsters in the car, I checked," I confirmed as John changed through a few songs on his phone.
"Good. I'm not drinking anything else."
"Fuck no you aren't. You're  driving after the next stop."
John smiled and I drove away as fast as possible, glancing briefly at Cory in the rear view mirror.
"Are you bleeding?" John asked.
My vision turned tunnel as I glanced down at the smear across my pad.
"Every month!" I grinned. John scowled and I sighed in relief.
I reached across and ran my fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face.
He smiled at me and I hit 85mph once again, my stomach knotted in butterflies as the sun began to sink.
"Let's play a game," John said. "Let's play truth or dare."
"Dare, on the interstate?"
"Truth then, except at truck stops," he modified.
I bit my lip in hesitation but adrenaline got the best of me as I grinned and whispered,
"Yes."
Speeding into the orange sunlight, my soul urged itself to slide out of my mouth and to rip John's from his body in return. He laughed as he looked at me, for he understood.

Layne Damaged .chapter 2.

Chapter 2

We were finally in Little Rock and John took over driving. I felt very awake and I felt adrenaline. That’s all I felt – not even anxiety, not anything but a rush. John was yammering non-stop, pissing me off. We pulled over to get gas again and he put his arm around me.

“This is going to be so awesome! I’ve never seen mountains up close.”

This was rather true because Louisiana is flat and we were suddenly surrounded by rocks. Big ones. John got out of the car to use the gas pump and I felt a familiar surge of impulse, and I felt that my... panties were wet? John did that? I thought, “ That better be a onetime thing…fuck. No urges towards the gay guy…nope.” As I quietly urged my body not to be so rude, I scrolled through my texts, and I had no new messages. What a shocker.

Putting that wet thought out of my mind, I walked with John into the gas station. The air was warm but not weighing me down like it did back home. I paid little attention to the scenery and more attention to the prey. There was no way I’d do it at this gas station, but the people walking around me moving like sheep, so stupid. I wonder what Bow Peep did to her sheep. How alarming, indeed.

“I want cookies, but I’ll get fat. Bananas are fattening too…” I speculated while gazing around.

“So? You’re small, eat something.” John stared at a bottle of Crown Royal out of the corner of his eye. Oh, I knew it…John was going to get alcohol regardless of age or drunk driving laws. John came across as sweet, as did I, but he was a kleptomaniac. That wasn’t something I felt compelled to do, although I would steal if I felt like it and fancied a new lip-gloss. John always managed to randomly have new toys when he had no money. I walked away towards the women's bathroom, taking my cue to not get in the way. I needed to fix that issue he caused me to have below the belt anyhow.

I picked the stall far from the door after hastily checking for feet in the stalls, unbuttoned my jeans and leaned against the wall. He better not get caught, I thought. He’s good at it…Not even when he stole that lug-wrench. He never asked me why I needed him to steal a lug wrench...he never gets caught…I’ll never get caught!

I walked out of the bathroom calmly. John, I saw through the window, was already waiting by the car for me. I left the store, buying nothing, but smirking at the cashier as he eyed me pushing through the door.

“You look all red,” John told me as I walked towards the passengers’ door. A bottle of crown was popping out of my purse. “And by the way, I got us a present.”

“It’s hot,” I said quickly. We got in, and John drove quickly away from the gas station and back onto the scenic highway. It was all going up, I thought as I blasted music and held my hand out the window, John completely rolling down his own window, singing loudly. We sang so loudly into the heat of the asphalt and the summer that I thought we might overheat and explode at any moment.

I opened up the bottle and even the Crown burned all the way down, and I passed it to John. I loved it.

“Only one sip while you're driving,” I said over the music. “Thief.” He nodded and handed it back to me. Another sip.

“You know you love it.”

My eyes widened, but I smiled. He wasn't wrong. The beat picked up and we weren't stoppable.

Layne

Layne Damaged .chapter 1.

Chapter 1

I had been planning this trip for years. Six years, to be exact. Research, studying, practicing my methods, collecting extra money and hiding it in cash in my jewelry box, finally getting my drivers license by age eighteen. That took for fucking ever. And there I was, a week before the trip, about to go into a completely different kind of trip.

“Cough syrup… like legal acid,” John said, opening his bottle of purple.

“Cough syrup,” I argued, “like what I take when I’m sick.” 

I flipped my hair out of my face to take the first gross gulp of purple, liver-murdering shit. I thought for a moment about my hair and how recognizable it would make me; blonde hair with black streaks had been out of style for a while. Oh well, I thought. Braids, pony-tails, scarves, and a new lipstick with trucker hats are a girls’ best friend. Fuck diamonds.

“Shut up and finish the bottle, Layne,” he interrupted my contemplation. “I’m done with mine.” It was true. John sat with his back against the wall in the dark room we were in; his apartment was pretty empty, and he was pretty much addicted to cough syrup ever since his boyfriend cheated on him.

“Should I take him back?” he asked. I stretched and dropped my now empty bottle onto the floor near John’s. He removed his beanie from his jaw-length brown hair, perfectly straightened and highlighted. He tossed it against the wall. I felt itchy on the white, purple-stained carpet.

“Think about it on the road trip,” I replied. I couldn’t have my naïve accomplice back out on me to make up with his unfaithful boyfriend, and it would be good for John to be too contemplative and depressed on the trip to pay much attention to what I was going to be doing. “I’m thirsty. Do you have any whiskey?”

“I have a bottle of wine. Well, half of one.”

“Fucking wine?”

“Alcohol doesn’t help you if you’re thirsty anyway. You really want to be drunk and robo-tripping at the same time?”

 I thought for a quick moment.

“Half a bottle of wine won’t get me drunk. You’re already tripping if you think that. Have we met?”

 I stood up and walked the whole seven feet over to the refrigerator. I was beginning to feel tall. A half-empty bottle of red win looked at me from inside, and I gripped it around the neck, daring it to slip away from me. I sat next to John.

“I feel loopy,” he said, smacking his head against the wall. I downed the wine and gagged slightly.

“I feel ready,” I said, “for the road trip.”

“You have everything packed?”

“Just about. Just need to change my oil and rotate the tires.”

“I still need to pack…”

John spread out on the floor and so did I. R.E.M was playing loudly through the apartment. I felt insane from the cough syrup and made sure not to talk much; I just made short replies which took forever to escape my mouth whenever John asked what he should do about his boyfriend. He eventually grew quiet and began humming the songs. I daydreamed about the trip. Zigzagging across America in my dark green car with John. Eating at truck stops, sleeping in dirty hotels. I told my parents that I wanted to take a trip to California during the summer before starting college. They were surprisingly fine with it and what they didn’t know is that I wasn’t going anywhere near California on this trip. I wasn’t going to stay in one state for more than three days; that would be far too risky. They gave me an extra one-thousand dollars to go along with the several thousand they didn’t know I had saved up. After penny-pinching for two years and not buying a damn thing except a gun silencer, bullets, my nice knife collection, and liquor, I had just enough for this road trip.

I sighed loudly. I was going to be better than my idols. I would be so good they wouldn’t even be my idols anymore. Dahmer, Bundy, and Gacey were going to be rolling in their graves. My tactics would be better, my plan was more than sufficient, and, most of all, I wasn’t going to get caught. From my Louisiana home-town all the way up to the Canadian border, death would be striking, and striking, and striking until I ran out of venom or just got plain bored of it. And I doubted that would happen. If I get bored of that, well... there's not much left to alleviate it. 

“Layne, are you sure you’ve got enough money for this?” my dad asked. I was at home for once, instead of drifting around like I usually do, playing music, trying to score alcohol or whatever else I might find. Alcohol, I thought… that could cause problems with this whole mission.

“I’m pretty sure. I’ve been saving for a minute there.”

“Well, I put a few hundred extra dollars in your account just in case,” he said, putting his trucker hat over his less-than-full head of hair. “I know you’ll want to be getting souvenirs and all that.”

“Not much of a souvenir person, but thanks. Maybe I'll get a shot glass.” My dad shot me a wary glance.

 I wondered what kind of souvenirs I would be picking up from my victims… hair? Teeth? I’m thinking, pinky finger bone. I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring back shot glasses from every state I’d been to where someone happened to be murdered or missing.

Aside from the looking forward to fulfilling my plans, I was looking forward to being somewhere other than my town. Spending my whole life tied down to this humid hell hole was not the plan, and even though I’d be returning, a vacation was much needed. I was going to end up killing someone I knew if I didn’t get away. Getting this need out of my system before coming back home would be crucial. Going on a frenzy in a town where everyone knows who sneezes when wouldn’t work out to my benefit.

John had packed more normal things for the trip and I was putting his bags into my car while he sat on the curb in front of his apartment. We would be leaving in the morning.

“Man, you don’t even have stuff in your apartment. How do you have so many bags?” I asked. He sighed.

“I have to have things, you know… what are you taking?”

“Just clothes, really.” And weapons. And hats. And maps. An extra gas can.

“No drunk driving,” he said.

“Fine. You drive.”

“No! I will some but you have to drive too.”

“We’re taking a lot of back roads,” I said, looking at the main map, “because I hate the interstate.” And because there are more cops on the interstate.

“It’s going to take forever to get to Canada.”

“This isn’t all about Canada, it’s about the actual trip.”

I stayed at John’s apartment that night and he talked little about his romantic issues. This was a good thing for my blood pressure but I wondered if he was over it somehow. Probably not; John was very sensitive to his love issues, although not sensitive to much else. He never was the type to sit and cry over things, unless, of course, it was a boyfriend.

I barely slept which was annoying. I woke up suddenly when I thought I heard someone breaking in – I guess the trip was getting to me. John was asleep beside me. I ended up staring at the ceiling for several hours before I started falling back asleep and then the alarm startled me. Great, I thought, a long night of startling noises before I spend months driving around.

“Bro, wake up,” I said, shaking John. “The alarm is going off.” John opened his eyes slowly.

“No it’s not.” I looked at him like he was a retard and the alarm stopped. I looked at it. “It’s only three.”

“Well I must have set it too early.” I continued to stare at it. John rolled over onto the floor to face the wall.

“Well if you’re going to get up, remember to take your Xanax.”

I took my Xanax and stared into the mirror because as it seems, I have outburst of anger. I was going to run out of Xanax if I kept taking it several times a day – something John never saw me do. So I put it in my bag and tried to ignore it while I marked off hotels on the map. The first stop would be in Little Rock, Arkansas. John would hopefully still be distracted and wouldn’t be annoying me the whole time. I had wondered before if John had sensed I was a bit off – he never acted weirded out even if I slipped up and said something really strange. It was a good thing, because without sleep, I’d probably say several stupid things. I knew everyone was just like me except their interests were different. This is my knitting, art, my hammer and nail. It’s just illegal.

“Tell me again why we’re up at four?” John asked, walking slowly into the room. “My boyfriend is an asshole,” he said. He stared for a moment, looking me in the eyes with a strange glazed appearance.

“You don’t have a boyfriend. And I’ve been up all night. You’re up at four because we’re leaving at four,” I retorted.

“Okay. I’m going to need to go get coffee if you expect me to stay awake.”

“That’s fine. I probably need it too.”

We moved like sloths at the truck stop while making coffee. John was rather simple about his. I put white chocolate in mine and a ton of sweetener and whipped cream.

That’s more sugar than caffeine,” he said, watching me.

“No it’s a pretty equal amount. I’ll be way more hyper than you.”

“Because hyper driving is a good thing?” He brushed his hair aside. He was smiling a bit, which I hadn’t seen in days. Really must be over that boyfriend, I thought.

“Shut the fuck up, we need to go.”

With a full tank of gas and a lot of coffee, we left town. I felt like turning around and pointing at it and cussing it out when we crossed the parish line but I decided against it. I played really loud music instead. It was lucky that we had such similar taste in music or he would have had to walk home. I spaced out on the interstate, which was fairly empty. Whoa, I thought, I’m going to kill people all month.

“Layne...” I heard someone say. It sounded really distant. “Layne…” The sun was barely up. “Layne!”

“What!” I screamed. I had forgotten John was in the car.

“You’re going eighty!”

“Eighty wha… oh…” I was driving eighty miles an hour. I slowed down to sixty to appease John and to avoid cops.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he squealed.

“Lots of things. I was spaced out.”

“No spacing out and driving.”

“Okay, Mr. Take-Your-Xanax.”

I didn’t space out like that again for a while. We were about four hours away from Little Rock, and I was excited. When stopping at truck stops or going through parts of Louisiana and Arkansas towns I had never seen, I watched people. I wondered what I would say to lure them away if I were alone. I wondered how easy it would be to sneak into their cars which they left unlocked usually. I saw a million drop-spots, saw a million potentials. John was clueless. And in the way. He didn’t seem so upset about the boyfriend at all; he was excited about the trip and therefore distracted.

How the fuck do I make him fall asleep?

Layne