Tonight, She Lives

By: Kyle Kucek
September 5, 2008

     Samantha stood there, lost and stoned, walking down the deserted highway. The man that had picked her up the night before had dropped her off and left her with practically nothing. Clinging onto her torn tanktop with one hand and holding a purse of drugs in the other, she gazed down the road behind her, hoping someone would drive by and save her.

     “HELP!” she cried out at the top of her lungs. Looking around, she noticed that it was completely empty. All she could hear were the caws of the crows in the tall trees on either side of the road. She sighed and stopped walking, then reached into her purse and pulled out her pipe to pack another bowl.

     The night before was a blur to her. Samantha could only remember the man in the spotless Lexus rolling up to the park where she was waiting, smirking and motioning for her to come to him. When they got back to his place, she took two pills of ecstasy with a few sips of bourbon then gave him head in his armchair. She asked him to take her home but she fell unconscious before she could remember him ever taking her away.

     The truth was, Samantha wasn’t all that bad. She couldn’t help what had happened to her. Her mother had died of cancer right after her father left her, and the rest of her family was five states away. After being evicted from her parents’ house because she couldn’t pay the mortgage, she decided to wander the streets and make money the way her mother had.

     She didn’t have the best memory, so that was all she could remember about her life. No childhood memories, no photographic memories of people she had met—she had been knocked out too many times to remember anything. All that stuck to her was finding some way to make a living.

     As Samantha fumbled for her white lighter in her purse, she could hear the distant sound of a resounding bass in a sound system. She listened more closely.

     It was coming closer. From behind her. The sound of tires rolling across asphalt, a car moving at around sixty miles per hour.

     A white station wagon came around the bend about fifty yards away toward Samantha. She gasped in excitement, dropping all her items in her purse and waving frantically at the car. It didn’t matter who was driving or where they were headed. All she wanted was a ride into the nearest town, wherever it was.

     “Hey!” Samantha yelled out. “Hey, you!”

     The car passed her a few yards then rolled to a stop. She sprinted to the driver’s side and leaned onto the door, folding her arms across the rolled-down window. She watched as the driver’s hairy hand reached for the volume dial and turned down the loud reggae music.

     Smiling, Samantha said, “Where you headed?”

     She observed the driver. It was an older man, mid fifties, with a little scruff around his chin and sideburns past his ears. He wore a red trucker hat on his balding head, with the words “GOOD LOVIN” written in a simple design across the front. He had a nasty grin spread across his face, a smile Samantha had seen way too many times among all perverted men, and the only thing she could stare at was the gargantuan gap between his two front teeth.

     “I’m goin’ into town to pick up some stuff,” he told her, his voice not as deep as Samantha had anticipated. “Want a ride in?”

     “Yeah, that’d be great,” she said, a little more hesitant to get into the car than she had been a few seconds before.

     She gulped and walked over to the passenger, climbed in, and waiting for him to switch gears.

     The driver reached out with his right hand and said, “I’m Bruce.”

     Reluctantly, she took his hand and replied, “Pleasure. I’m Samantha.”

     “You’re a real cutie, aren’t ya?” Bruce told her, his upper lip curling a little as he smiled even wider. “You live ‘round here?”

     “I guess so. Truth is, I’m not too sure where I am.”

     “Oh, you don’t have to worry ‘bout that. You’ll pro’lly recognize shit once we get into town.” He let his foot off the brake and moved on down the road. “We’ll take a lil’ shortcut, else we won’t be in town for ‘nother half hour.”

     “Alright, sounds good,” Samantha said, forcing herself to beam at him as he continued to stare at her.

     Bruce turned up the volume on his reggae as they sped down the road, twisting around bends in the mountain. Samantha kept her head near the open window, letting the wind play with her long streams of blond hair. Every so often Bruce would glance over at her and chuckle perversely; almost as if he had something in store for her that she wasn’t aware of.

     After a while of driving Samantha started to crave more of her pot. She pulled out her pipe and starting packing a new bowl when Bruce suddenly interrupted her.

     “How much you got left there?” he asked.

     “Like, half a bowl, I think. Why?”

      “Here, look in the glove compartment.”

     She reached in front of her and opened the compartment. Her eyes widened as soon as she saw a Ziploc bag filled with fresh green pot. The dense smell immediately caught her nose.

     “Goddamn that’s a lot of weed!” she exclaimed.

     “It’s all yours, hun,” Bruce said with a snigger. “That’s some good shit. My treat.”

     Figuring that this would help her forget what a creep he was, and how this would make her feel a little better when she gave him head, Samantha opened the bag and took out enough to fill the bowl of her pipe. She rolled her thumb across her lighter and lit it for a few seconds, feeling the smoke drift into her throat and into her lungs.

     She let out a cloud of smoke, whirling as it was released into the air, then vanished. Her mind raced with a sudden sense of exhilaration as she took another hit.

     After she took eight hits or so, Bruce turned to her and chuckled, “Some good shit, huh?”

     “For sure, Bruce,” Samantha said with a smile. She didn’t even care that he was staring at her chest and thinking about how he could take advantage of her while she was stoned. All she could see was everything getting blurry around her, shifting in and out, changing shapes, morphing.

     “Whoa, what the fuck?” she said. “Why am I trippin’ out?”

     “I told you it’s strong, didn’t I?” Bruce told her.

     “Yeah but what the hell is it laced with? LSD?”

     “Can’t tell ya that, ‘cause I don’t even know myself!” This made Bruce laugh hysterically and he pulled a sharp left turn into what looked like a wooded area.

     Samantha’s eyes widened as she saw the trees around her, wilting and burning even though they were not, sinking into the ground and rising back up again.

     “Where are you taking me? What the fuck!” She was yelling more loudly now. “Fucking psycho! Stop the car, you bitch!”

     “Shut the fuck up, ya dumbass whore,” Bruce said, reaching across and swiftly slapping her across the face.

     Samantha looked at him and gasped. His entire face was melting, the fat around his neck drooping and sliding onto his dirty wifebeater, his eyes bloodshot and sinking into his flesh. His hands looked like melting masses of candle wax dripping all over the steering wheel and the trees beyond the window started to reach out and try to snatch her.

     “What the fuck! You psycho! What the fuck did you give me?!”

     “Don’t make me fuckin’ slap ya again, bitch!” he yelled. “You’re nothin’ but a whore who can’t do shit but give head. You’re good for nothin’. Ya can’t even fuckin’ think because you’ve killed so many damn brain cells with all your coke and shit. You can’t fight back, you’re too fuckin’ high to do shit. So shut the fuck up and I won’t fuckin’ hurt you.”

     She looked away from him, sensing that tears were streaming down her face without knowing if they actually were, feeling herself melt into the passenger seat. She forced her mind to think of the possibilities. She could jump out of the car. She could punch him. She could just make a fucking run for it.

     The car suddenly stopped. Her mind was racing with thoughts as she forget them and remembered them and saw everything morph around her, everything happening in a frenetic non-stop motion. Bruce locked the car doors and rolled up the windows as they melted, or appeared to, and he reached over to her squirming body and pulled her closer to his melting face.

     She pushed against him, her hands sinking into his melting mass, and he let his tongue slide across her pale neck, like a snail leaving a trail of green slime behind it. She winced and shivered, feeling an overwhelming sense of stoned discomfort, feeling the urge to scream over the burning hand that he put over her mouth to muffle her voice.

     As he pushed her head back against the passenger window and slid down to her stomach, Samantha looked for something to use against him. Her three-inch long glass pipe rested on the floor, weed falling out of it, next to a wrench and her purse. As he licked her stomach with the sliming serpent, she slid the right side of her body toward the floor and picked up the swirling pipe in her hand. He moaned, sinking his tongue into her belly button, massaging deep into her love handles with his firm melting hands.

     Holding the pipe, Samantha reached back and threw her arm forward as fast as she could, slamming the pipe into the side of Bruce’s head with a thud.

     “FUCK!” he screeched, holding onto his head as flowers blossomed out of his temple, purple tulips and daisies wrapping themselves around his hand and spreading across his arm, morphing into blood-red and sinking into his melting skin as it dripped.

     Samantha quickly pulled open the lock on the door and sprang out, wobbling back and forth while she ran as fast as she could away from the car, stepping over branches and thorny leaves as she sprinted.

     The trees shifted back and forth around her, their branches reaching out to catch her, almost as if they were working with Bruce to catch her. She let out a scream as one whizzed past her head, missing her by inches, and she fell to the ground, tripping on a tree root that coiled and hissed at her.

     “BITCH!” Bruce shouted, starting the car and turning it in Samantha’s direction, a clear path between the trees where he could easily drive straight through her. He revved the engine, chuckling as he watched her drag herself across the forest ground helplessly, unable to get to her feet and flinching at the trees that weren’t even moving.

     “I’m on my way, bitch!” he yelled, speeding toward her.

     Samantha screamed as she watched him speed toward her, her heart pounding in her chest, watching all the trees move with him and come at her. She mustered being able to stand up and leapt out of the way, turning and seeing the trees wrap themselves around the white station wagon as it collided with a resounding screech. Bruce exploded in a mass of candle wax splattering across the trees, flowers and plants wrapping themselves around the car in a bath of blood-red.

     Before she knew it, Samantha was knocked out cold.



     THREE HOURS LATER… Samantha awoke, smelling the scent of pot and feeling the cold wind blow through an open window. She sat up, realizing she was in a car, driving down a road she had never seen before.

     “Hey, you’re awake,” a voice said. She turned and saw a man, a little older than she, driving and smiling at her. “You were knocked out clean. I hear some crash and I went out and found you. You got a few bruises, but you look alright.”

     “Where… am I?” Samantha struggled to find words, her head aching with an awful migraine.

     “Don’t worry,” the man said, “you’ll probably recognize it as soon as we get into town.”

     The car continued down the road, and Samantha kept her head near the open window, feeling the wind blow through her hair. Every so often the man would glance over at her and smile; almost as if he had something in store for her that she wasn’t aware of.