Two Serial Killers

This started out as a 750 Word Contest Entry... but didn't make the word cut!

I picked up a hitchhiker last night.

I was past him already, just having gone through the last traffic light before exiting out into the open countryside. On impulse, without stopping to think, I tapped the brakes, came to a stop. Looking into the rearview mirror I watched him pick up the black and orange gym bag in one hand, guitar case in the other, jog along the edge of the asphalt. He was young, younger than me, I thought; but his face had some miles on it.

He seemed surprised that I, a woman alone, would pick up a stranger, and asked, "Thanks, but why would you pick me up?.. How do you know I'm not a serial killer?"

I gave him a look. "The chances of two serial killers being in one car at the same time would be astronomical."

We both laughed. He had a 'good' face.

At Beaumont I had gotten off I-10, looking for some two-lane blacktop. Fewer prying eyes. Angle across that part of Texas up toward College Station.

"Where you headed?" I asked, after giving him time to throw his gear over into the jump seat of the GMC Canyon.

"How far you going?" he asked.

I laughed; told him, "My mama always told me -- don't ever answer a question with a question."

He laughed. Then: "somewhere I can get lost."

"A big city," I said. " -- hard to get lost in a small town. Folks wanting to know who is the new guy? ... I can drop you off up close to A & M." We were pushing it hard up some obscure state highway, east Texas disappearing in the rearview.

"Farther than that," he said. "New Mexico, maybe Arizona. ... I'll just stick with you," he said. "Long as you heading west."

He was good company, had gotten out the guitar; played some old Eagles stuff, Jerry Jeff Walker. I was hoping he would choose to stay.

"You hiding?" I asked, us just crossing I-69 at Cleveland, "Running from the law?"

He was quiet a minute. "Police in New Orleans labeled me a person of interest. ... Fellow in a bar back there got himself stabbed, didn't make it." Then he added, " ... thought it best if I just disappeared for a while."

"I heard about that," I said. "That French Quarter fellow meeting his demise. I was coming through town; it was on the local news."

I reached down between the seat and the door, checked to be sure the double barrel Bonds Arm Snake Slayer was nestled securely where it should be, within easy reach. 410 buckshot in one chamber, self-loaded 45 in the other. It was.

"You packin'?" I asked, not the least bit shy.

I could feel him giving me a look. Then: " ... just a blade," he said. "Firearms have a way of getting me in trouble."

"Did you do that fellow in New Orleans?" I asked. Checked the rear view; there were blue lights, but they were going east at a high rate of speed.

"Man owed me money; wouldn't pay," he told me. "We had a 'set-to'. ... Then I left."

For a while after that it was quiet. Us chasing the sunset.

I didn't tell him about the deputy sheriff had been busting down my patio door, back in north Florida, in the pre-dawn. Son-of-a-bitch's mistake was I knew he was coming, was waiting for 'im. Didn't tell the hitchhiker/guitar picker that I had changed plates in some little Gulf Coast town in the edge of Mississippi; threw the Florida tag over the guard rail and into the Pearl River; put on a set from Utah I just happened to have in the cargo bin.

We stopped at Conroe, filled up the Canyon with gas. Would take SR105 west and then number 6 on up to that college town.

"Couple of burgers?" he asked. "I'm buying." Considering the choices, we picked a Mom-n-Pop place set back off the intersection a hundred yards or so.

The sound of sirens, more blue lights; all heading east. "That's five now," I said. "Something big happening."

"Woman and two kids got carjacked," a truck driver said. Him holding the door open for us. "Madison County sheriff thought they had him cornered, but he got away. -- Been listening on the scanner," he added.

We stood around in the parking lot, listening to the radio, worked on the burgers.

" ... escaped convict from Huntsville State Prison -- THP thinks is driving a silver Dodge Ram crew cab, kidnapped woman with two children in the vehicle -- considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution.

"The escapee, *** *****, convicted serial killer from the Rio Grande Valley area, was being transported from the prison in Huntsville to the courthouse in Madisonville to testify in an armed robbery trial --- ---- ---

"Law enforcement agencies are concentrating the search in the approaches toward Houston."

My hitch hiker walked off toward the truck. I gave him a look, once I caught up.

"Couple a fellows giving me the eye," he said. Opened the door, slid into the shotgun seat. Two minute later we were past a lake and all those summer houses, out in the open country headed west. The sunset gone, dark now.

Somewhere past Montgomery I saw headlights coming up behind us: hard! And we were a ways over the speed limit ourselves.

"Wonder where the fire is?" I asked, rhetorically.

"What?" he said, stopped the guitar stuff he was doing.

The head lights behind us blinked; started passing, even over the double yellow lines.

"What the hell?" one of us, maybe both of us, said. We both turned our heads, looked out the window: a silver Dodge Ram crew cab, the woman in the passenger seat staring at us, wide eyed, desperate.

"Oh, shit!" the hitch hiker said, even as I was thinking it. "That's that serial killer, a woman -- and hopefully two kids."

"Imagine that," I said, "three serial killers on the same road at the same time, somewhere in east Texas." I punched the accelerator to the floor.

"You gonna call the law?" he asked.

"Fuck no," I said. "Just as soon didn't nobody know where we are. ... You up for this?" I asked him."

Us starting to catch up. We had more horses under the hood than did the Dodge Ram. We settled in some two-three hundred yards back. Don't get too close, don't scare the man, make him do something dangerous

"We coming up on a town," hitch hiker said; him studying the GPS. "You got a plan?"

"No," I said. "We can't 'tag' his bumper, wreck 'im. That woman and kids on board. ... Hope he runs out of gas."

After a couple of minutes he asked, "you ever drive race cars?"

"Go carts," I told him. "A while back, when I was young. -- I do know how to spin 'im out, him going into a curve. Question is: is he good enough to keep it from flipping."

Then I asked him, " ... you really a serial killer?"

He laughed. "No. But I did kill a fellow once. -- He deserved it."

"Me too, a while back," I told him. "And I might 'a killed a deputy sheriff this morning. Him bustin' in the house to fuck my sister; and her just fifteen. -- Didn't know I was there waiting for 'im."

We both went quiet for a while.

The highway did an almost 90 degree turn to the right coming into the little town. The Dodge Ram lost it, coming in way too hot; rear end fish-tailing until he straightened it out. By then he was sliding sideways into the parking lot between the local feed-and-seed store and a John Deere tractor dealership.

"You ready!" the hitchhiker and I both shouted at the same time, the Canyon skidding to a stop, us jumping out.

"You get the woman and kids," I told him. "I got the bad guy." I was already past the back bumper of the Dodge Ram, had the Snake Slayer cocked, pointed at the driver side door.

The woman, the mom, must have hit the unlock button, was tumbling out the door onto the pavement. Hitchhiker/Guitar Picker was pulling one of the kids out of the back seat.

The bad guy swung his left leg out of the Dodge truck, had the second kid clinched in his right arm; holding a homemade (prison made!) shive against its throat; the kid screaming. He, the bad guy, started toward me, then turned toward the GMC.

"I'm takin' your ride," he said: grinned. "This one's running on fumes... Rug Rat here's going with me."

I shot the front half of his foot off with a full load of 410 buck shot.

"Shit! -- Oh, shit!!" He reached for his 'half-gone' foot; dropped the baby. "What the fuck?" he shouted, staggered around on one foot.

Hitchhiker was suddenly in the mix, the needle-sharp point of an eleven three-sixteenth inch Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife tickling the underneath of the bad guy's chin. The mom, picked up the just dropped baby, spit in the bad guy's face, stomped on his 'good' foot. Outnumbered, suddenly helpless, he fell in a heap; curled up in a fetal position.

"What do you want to do with this scum-bag?" I asked. "You want to call the police?"

She laughed, kicked the man in the back of the head.

"Let's leave the law out of this," the woman said. "Sooner or later they'll be looking for me."

We both gave her a look.

"Husband came home drunk, beat me one time too many," she said, matter-of-factly. " ... sewed him up in a bed sheet, left him with a pitch fork stuck through his neck."

"You got gas?" guitar picker asked." -- You not going home, where you going?"

"All I got to do is switch over to the back-up tank," she said. "I didn't tell asshole here that part." She kicked him again, between the legs this time. "Where you goin'? ... I might just go with you guys."

I looked at hitchhiker, " ... think you can deal with two killer women?" I asked him.

He gave both of us a look. "What the hell," he said. "Why not."

We -- mostly hitchhiker/guitar picker -- dragged the bad guy over to the "Welcome To Navasota" sign. "Population 7049 -- Home of the Rattlers"; cable-tied him to the metal post.

"Somebody 'll find him soon enough," guitar/picker said.

We got into the two trucks, headed west, the hitchhiker driving the Dodge Ram; me leading the way. The sound of sirens started before we had even cleared the city limits.

"I think they found him," hitchhiker said over the CB radio.

An hour later we pulled into a cheap motel on the outskirts of College Station; stopped for the night.