Roadkill

TRIGGER WARNING: A content warning isn't enough. This story has instances of violence towards humans and animals, gore, and substance abuse.

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Tha-thunk.

I swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes.

The thing had darted out of nowhere. My head spinning from the Jack, withdrawal creeping in. Trying to catch my breath, I looked over the mess in the passenger seat—maps, temporary identification papers, the discharge packet from the shelter, and a patient card from the methadone clinic. I put the bottle in the glove compartment next to the envelope of cash and retrieved Kai’s handgun from under the seat.

Slowly, I got out of the pickup, tucking the gun into my waistline.

The highway was still, but I could hear a stifled sob from behind the truck. I moved toward the figure, hand on my waist. As I approached, she came into focus in the darkness: the twisted body of a young woman, sprawled on the pavement.

“Fuck. What the fuck did you run out in the road for? Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I crouched down beside her.

She moaned in agony, hands reaching for her left shin. I looked at it, mangled and shredded. I tore off my jacket.

“Don’t touch it!” I ordered. “You got a cellphone?”

I wrapped my jacket above her knee and tied a crude knot. As I pulled it tight, she screamed again, trailing off into a labored gurgle.

“No… phone,” she sputtered.

“Me neither.”

Her eyes fluttered.

“Don’t leave me, girl!”

I threw her arm over my shoulder.

“Easy does it.”

We stumbled to the truck, and I opened the tailgate.

“Lean over and I’ll roll you in.”

She fell into the bed.

“I’m going to get you help,” I promised as I pulled a tarp over her.

I got back into the driver’s seat. I was about an hour outside of Bozeman along US 89. She wouldn’t make it to Bozeman.

I sped past Highway 294 on my right, my salvation—the back roads to my mother—vanishing as I continued north toward White Sulphur Springs. Twenty minutes later, I reached the Taxidermist’s dirt drive.

Dawn was approaching. I parked the truck beside the weathered shack and jumped out. The Taxidermist’s pit bulls swarmed me, then relented, recognizing my scent. They turned their attention to the truck bed, tempted by the fresh blood.

I withdrew the handgun and shot a hole through the shack wall.

“Daryl! Get your ass out here!”

The dogs were going nuts now. One of the pits charged me, and I shot it dead. The others ran off behind the shack.

Daryl threw open his rickety door. He rubbed his eyes as the sun crested the mountains. He looked down at the dog.

“Now why’d you have to go and shoot him in the head? Can’t make nothing pretty out of a blown-out skull.”

Daryl moved towards me.

“Don’t fucking move,” I said.

“Jamie? Is that you, girl? Oh boy, Kai is gonna lose his shit. We figured you was dead.”

“Shut up.”

I pointed the gun at his head.

“I got some roadkill here. Needs stitched up.”

I motioned the gun toward the truck bed.

Daryl shot a toothy grin at me.

“Move it, motherfucker!”

Daryl shuffled over to the bed.

“Let’s see what you brung me.”

He pulled off the tarp.

“Ooof, that’s a ripe one.”

The girl had passed out. He poked her leg with a dirty finger.

“Whattya expect me to do with this mess?”

“Fix it or you’re dead!” I shouted, sweat beading on my forehead. “Help me get her inside.”

Daryl and I pulled her from the truck and dragged her into the shack. We heaved her onto his work table. Around the table, animal carcasses hung from the ceiling in varying stages of decomposition. A bucket of bones and sinew sat on the floor.

As Daryl reached for a rusty saw, the stench of rotting flesh churned my stomach, and I vomited before passing out.

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I woke up in a familiar bed to the sound of roosters crowing. Morning light illuminated the daisy wallpaper, framing the wall cutout where spider terrariums lined the beams.

In the bed beside me, I heard a soft, rhythmic breath.

I looked over to see the girl, sleeping peacefully—a bloody, gauzed stump where her lower left leg used to be.

“Oh no. Oh no.”

I tried to sit up but found I was strapped to the bed.

“Hey. Hey, girl, can you hear me?” I whispered.

She didn’t move.

“Hey, hey!” I cried, a little louder.

No response. Surely she had been drugged into oblivion.

I began to writhe on the bed, ramming the wooden frame against the wall with all the force I could muster.

“Kai!” I screamed. “Kai!”

He appeared in the doorway, a halo of light radiating around the top of his head, still bandaged from the wound I'd inflicted the last time I saw him.

“Hello, Jamie.”

He sat down on the edge of my bed.

“We missed you.”

“I didn’t miss you, motherfucker.”

I spit at him, and he slapped me across the face.

“Shut up, you needle-holed whore,” Kai said. “You've been gone nearly three weeks. I’ve seen your papers. Who knows about us?”

“Nobody knows nothing. I’m a vagrant.”

“Where’d you get the money?”

“Mother sent it,” I said.

Kai’s eyes widened.

“Mary is alive?”

“She’s alive and expecting me. If I’m not at her door in two days she will know you got to me first and she will rain Armageddon upon you all just like you've been praying so hard for."

Kai stood up, left the room and returned with a lock box. He unlocked it with the key from around his neck and produced a cell phone.

“Prove it,” he said.

He undid the strap around my arms and handed me the phone.

I dialed the number.

“Mama. It’s me. I’m at the compound. Kai wants to speak to you.”

I gave him the phone.

“Dear wife, how lovely to hear your voice.”

He listened for a moment as his face turned pale.

“There will be no need for that,” he said. “Goodbye, sweet Mary.”

Kai hung up and put the phone back in the lock box.

“Still a bitch!” He laughed. “Well done, Jamie. It seems you are free to go.”

He began unstrapping my restraints.

“I want my paperwork, my money, and your truck,” I said.

“Take them,” Kai gestured with open arms, “they are yours.”

“And the girl,” I said.

“No!”

Kai snarled and pressed my shoulders into the bed, his scraggly grey hair dangling in my face.

“She belongs to us now.”

“I’m not leaving without her!” I cried.

“The last thing that girl remembers is your face. What do you think she’ll do when she comes to? You want her telling the police her story? You don’t even have a driver’s license.”

I glanced over at her.

“She has no belongings. She is a runaway. Just like you. She’s better off with us.”

“She’s better off dead than with you.”

“You don’t have a choice. Your salvation, or damnation for you both," Kai snickered. “Get out.”

I stood up slowly, the walls swaying. As I left the room, I paused and put my hand on the girl’s remaining foot.

“I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

I clutched the railing as I walked down the stairs. Past Granny in her rocker. Outside, the children were feeding the chickens. One of them looked at me, then quickly averted her eyes. I tried to mouth words, but no sound came out.

The truck was parked in front of the farmhouse. I climbed inside. On the passenger seat, my paperwork remained untouched. In the glovebox, the half-drunk fifth of Jack and the money. Kai’s gun was nowhere to be found.

I put the truck in reverse and gunned it down the dirt drive.

Back onto the road toward my mother, a thousand miles away.