For the past fifteen minutes Sam Newell had been heading down highway 460 in a blue Ford with a red replacement trunk-lid. His passenger, Dane Benton, was laughing.
‘Hell, she was one of the easiest one’s we ever did get. Straight outta the shitter and into my arms. Sounds like a song don’it, Sam?’
‘Yeah? Well I ain’t too happy about it, Dane,’ Sam complained.
‘Ah cool ya heels, ain’t nobody seen me do it.’
‘Ya know we only take the one’s we bin watchin’, so we don’t fuck things up, and them’s Ella’s rules.’
‘Oh yeah ... like that redhead ya done shot to fuck this mornin’? Ya sayin’ that weren’t fucked up?’
‘That wasn’t my fault, Dane, if them fuckin’ cops hadn’t a showed up, we’da had her, no messin’.’
‘Yeah well, plannin’ or no plannin’ we got what we came for. So stop ya yelpin.’
‘Am just sayin’ is all. We gotta be careful, and I think we should dump this car. It’s way too hot.’
‘First off, Sam … don’t tell me to be careful, I know how to be careful. And this heap o’ shit you just called a car’s goin’ soon enough. There’s a nice shiny red one, just waitin’ for us. So shut the fuck up winin’, and keep on drivin’.’
After a couple more minutes, Dane noticed someone walking by the side of the road with his thumb out. ‘Well lookee what we got here!’ he said.
Sam slowed as they past the hitcher, pulling in slightly ahead of him.
Dane stuck the top half of his body from the car’s window. ‘Hey,’ he called.Where ya headed, boy?’
The kid looked to be about seventeen, with shoulder length blonde hair and carrying a guitar case. His arms were pushed through the handles of a black, Nike holdall, strapping it to his back. He wore a short blue denim jacket over a bright yellow T-shirt, light blue jeans, and white Nike training shoes. ‘Nashville Tennessee,’ he shouted back. ‘Gonna get me a record deal.’
Dane slid back inside and climbed out to assist the boy. ‘Well ain’t you the lucky one, sonny. Tennessee is where we’re headed too.’ He opened the rear door for the kid and took his guitar and holdall from him. ‘You just hop right on in there, Elvis, an I’ll put y’gear in the trunk.’
Looking in the rear-view mirror, Sam watched the kid climb in. He saw his face scrunch up as he sniffed the air.
‘Well, I don’t know how to thank you fellas, truly I don’t,’ he said, wafting a hand before his face.
‘Say, how old are you, son?’ asked Sam, reaching down to release the trunk-lid.
‘I turned seventeen a week last Tuesday. Pa got me that gee-tar for ma present, said it cost him a month’s pay an’all.’
When the trunk clicked open, Dane moved behind the car consealing himself, he picked up the kids guitar and tossed it into a ditch at the side of the road, then did the same with the holdall. Looking down, he bent at the waist licking the still unconscious face of their day’s work. After closing the trunk again, he climbed in, smiling at Sam. And as Sam drove off, he smiled back.
Dane turned to the kid. ‘So, Elvis,’ he said, leaning into the rear. ‘Have you ever wished you hadn’t done something, just after you went right ahead and did it? You know what I mean, boy?’
The kids eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t understand what you-’ at that point, the kid was interrupted by a vicious punch to the face.
‘Hey lookee here, Sam,’ laughed Dane, as he landed a second punch. ‘Elvis, has left the buildin’.’
About a hundred yards further along and off to the right of the road, Sam saw a billboard, he veered off parking behind it and he and Dane climbed out. Dane opened the rear door and reached in for the kid, gripping him by his long blonde hair. The kid started to put up a fight but had no hope of stopping what was about to happen to him. Between them, Dane and Sam dragged him from the back seat whilst he repeatedly screamed for his “Mammy”, his noise only being heard by the vast empty plane stretching out for miles behind the billboard.
Sam swung a well-place punch to the boy’s solar-plexus, dropping him to the dry dusty earth. Doubled over as he was, and groaning in pain, the kid attempted to stand. Dane swung his right leg, kicking the boy’s head like he would a football, thus rendering him unconscious. Dane had no intentions of killing him just yet, he knew only too well that blood won’t pump from a dead body, and having to suck hard to get it, kinda spoils the feast a little. After the kick from Dane, the kid’s noise abruptly ceased, leaving the silence of the desert once more to the Crickets.
The kid lay motionless on the floor as Sam and Dane started to tuck in. Sitting back to back on his chest, with an arm each pulled between their legs, they bit into his wrists. As the blood drained from his body, the kid began to regain consciousness, but that was a good thing. Their way of doing it meant they could allow him to come round, and keep him pinned. So when he did regain consciousness, he’d realise what was happening to him and his heart rate would increase, in turn, increasing the flow of blood, and their enjoyment of it. And every time he screamed, or started to struggle, he’d receive a blow to his groin from either Sam, or Dane. Or both.
After ten minutes the kid passed-out, and it wasn’t long before he’d passed-on. Dane and Sam began to jerk up and down on his chest to pump out the last of the blood. From the first taste to the last drop only took them fifteen minutes. Both wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands laughing childishly to each other. Like giggling excited schoolgirls.
‘Seventeen a week last Tuesday,’ said Sam. ‘Fuckin’ great year.’
They left the kids drained, pale corpse where it lay and returned to the car, ready to head for Martinsville.
Before either of them climbed in, Dane spoke to Sam. ‘Hey, Sam, we gotta make one more stop.’ Dane knew Sam didn’t like unscheduled stops. To him, an unsceduled stop, meant an unplanned stop.
‘Oh yeah? What for?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Well if you can’t say, then we ain’t gonna be stoppin,’ said Sam, getting in the driver’s side.
Dane climbed in and opened the glove-box taking out the police officer’s gun. Then, holding it to Sam’s head, he gave him an order. ‘Get out, Sam, now!’
‘What the fuck are you playin’ at, Dane?’
‘Out, Sam,’ he told him, cocking the hammer this time, ‘or I’m gonna have to shoot you. I don’t wanna shoot you, but I will.’
Sam twisted in his seat turning to Dane. ‘What the fuck’s up with you, Dane?’
‘Nothin’, just followin’ orders,’ he told him, before climbing from the car and walking round to the driver’s side. ‘Move over, I’m drivin’.’
Sam sighed as he slid over to the passenger seat. ‘Ya done told me ya don’t like drivin’ this piece o’ shit, remember? And what orders? Whose orders?’
Dane sat in the driver’s seat putting the gun in the doorwell beside his left leg. ‘Who or what, don’t matter none. So just leave it, huh?’
‘So where we goin’?’ Or is that a secret too?’
‘A little place I know, called Lynchburg.’
‘Lynchburg? That’s miles out of our way.’
‘Yeah I know, but we got a package to pick up. Something Ella said was mighty important.’
‘Well what about the girl we got in the trunk, then?’
‘She’s only here to help get the message across.’
Dane was about to hit the gas and pull out from behind the billboard when he saw car lights heading up behind them, and by the look of it, travelling at very high speed. He watched as a small red car shot by, easily hitting ninety miles an hour. Once he was sure it was out of sight, he and Sam set off for Lynchburg.
