Take her. That one.

I twitched. The sedan I had appropriated from a car park back in Salem swerved along with the contraction of my muscles. The twitches had become more frequent lately. More violent.

I should have refilled my prescription.

Take her. That one.

The skin over my knuckles became taut as I gripped the wheel cover that was adorned with some silly looking blonde fairy. I should have picked a better car—the cover was conspicuous for a man of my age. What self-respecting forty-three-year-old would have car accessories with a child’s character on it?

The cover popped off easily. I tossed it in the back seat along with my duffel bag without a glance. Eyes on the road—that was the way.

Take her. That one.

Who?

My eyes deviated from the pin-straight highway before me to the small shoulder along the side of the road that separated the asphalt from the trees. There was a girl there, thumb extended out to the center line. she had a basic satchel slung over her narrow shoulders, and a skirt that was more of a denim band-aid across her waist.

Take her. That one.

Why would the poor girl dress like that? Isn’t she cold?

I smoothed the canvas fabric of my jacket over my stained shirt. It was rather brisk even for the end of February. The heater pumped into the cabin of the car, and even still my hands were sluggish from the piercing cold.

Take her. That one.

I should give her a ride.

My turn signal clicked on and I started to guide the car over to the shoulder and made sure to slow down enough that I wouldn’t scare the girl. As soon as she saw the flashing amber light from my vehicle, she lowered her arm and backed up close to the trees to give me room to maneuver.

Now that I was closer, I could pick out more detail of the young hitchhiker. She seemed to be in her early twenties, and from the patch on her backpack I could see she, or someone she was close with went to Willamette University in Salem. She still had that round face most youths have, and a bit of weight around her middle.

It wasn’t the physical characteristics of her person that caught my eye the most, though. It was the odd outfit. Aside from the poor excuse of a skirt, she had clunky boots on, and a deep teal shirt that had a skull and crossbones emblazoned across the front.

Even more peculiar than that was her short spiky hair. It was colored a vibrant hue of magenta or had been some time ago. I could see strawberry blonde roots as they peeked through the swaths of pink.

Take her. That one.

Christ, where are her parents?

As soon as I parked, she rushed forward, unshouldered her bag and opened the passenger door. A waft of frosty air surged into the cabin and sent a chill through me so powerful that my vision shook along with my body.

“Thanks! Sorry—one sec,” the girl’s voice was light and musical. It didn’t seem to fit her aesthetic.

“Not a problem,” I replied softly. It was strange even now to hear my own voice. I had spent so much time in silence over the past few decades that I heard the voice of a stranger whenever I spoke.

The passenger door slammed shut, and the car bounced as the girl settled herself into the seat. She tossed her bag carelessly to the floor so she could have her lap free and buckle her seatbelt.

The way she moved was so fluid and loose, it mesmerized me. it was like she didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to fathom the idea of nothing gnawing at the back of my mind twenty-four-seven. The blissful quiet. The ability to sleep without unwanted thoughts in my head.

I yearned for it.

Take her.

“Hey, I’m Alys,” the girl reached out her polished hand for mine. I blinked away the dreams of silence and offered her an unsure smile as I took her hand with my own pockmarked appendage.

“Benjamin Redman. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alys.”

“Same.” Our hands parted ways. Alys’ went back to her lap so she could rub heat into her bare thighs and mine went to the steering wheel. I let off the break and pointed us back onto the highway.

“So, where are you headed?”

“Green Glen,” she sighed heavily.

“Geez, really? That’s a tiny town.”

“Yeah…there’s shit to do there, but I have to see someone.” Alys’ head dropped back against the headrest. It lolled in the direction of the window, her hair now obscured her dark painted face from my peripherals.

“Oh…best of luck.”

Take her.

No.

We were still an hour’s drive from Green Glen at this point. It was close enough to Salem for a day trip, but far enough that the entire town was encased by the iconic Oregon woodlands.

I spent part of my childhood in Green Glen. It was idyllic then. New housing developments popped up all around the highway and main commerce area. Some were more affluent than others, but even the houses in the bad part of town had a quaint atmosphere.

My parents moved us there from Salem when I was fourteen for my father’s career. My parents, little sister and I settled down in a run-down Victorian on the North side of town. We were only there for a few short years until my little sister passed.

I didn’t tell Alys any of this as we drove, though it might have served to make the hitchhiking experience less awkward. I, myself, didn’t mind the silence. Silence was a rare commodity.

Take her.

I said ‘no’.

So much for silence.

I glanced at Alys and noticed she was speaking. From the conversational tone, I could tell her words were meant for me, but her head was turned to the window.

“—Just, like, why did she have to lie, though? Relationships are based on trust and she fucking ruined it before it even began…I guess it’s partly my fault I never asked.” Her head rolled against the headrest until she looked at me instead of the trees.

“What do you think, Benjamin? What should I do?”

“Uhm,” my voice wavered. “Tell me exactly what she lied about, again?”

“Okay, so, Kerrie didn’t really lie, I guess. More like she let me believe she was older than she is,” at a glance I saw Alys’ painted on eyebrows knitted together. “I’m twenty-one, right? Well she’s sixteen. She doesn’t look sixteen. Oh! Here—”

Alys’ body doubled over as she went for her bag seated in the footwell of the passenger seat. She rummaged through the contents of her bag and pulled out a photo insert from a wallet.

“I know you’re driving, but just take a quick look,” Alys pulled a photo out of the protective sleeve, unfolded it and handed it over to me. I took the photo and held onto it as I gripped the steering wheel so I could see the road and glance at the photo at the same time.

The picture was a group of five kids. Two girls and three boys. They were all hunched together as the smiled and made faces at the camera. The two girls had their arms around each other. The shorter one looked like she was dressed in boy’s clothes from the angle the photo was taken at, whereas the taller girl was dressed in more form fitting clothing.

The tall girl had an older appearance and could pass for twenty-something. It wasn’t just the hourglass figure she had, but her face. It wasn’t round like Alys’. It seemed she could have been Alys’ senior.

“Kerrie is the taller blonde one, correct?” I glanced at my companion who stared at the photo with a mixture of anger and wistfulness.

“Yeah, that’s her,” she confirmed. “Don’t you see what I mean, though? She doesn’t look like a sixteen-year-old!”

“No, she doesn’t,” I handed the picture back to Alys. “She should have told you. It was wrong of her not to.”

“I know, right?” Alys’ musical voice turned sour. “She lied to me and freaked out when I told her we needed to take a break. She’s jailbait, I can’t date her, anyway. It’s fucked up.”

End her. Silence her.

Leave me alone.

My head bobbed as I mulled over her statement. Alys brought up fair points all around. I had completely missed out on dating, myself, but from the younger crowd that came and went through my institution, it was a ‘minefield’.

“Five years doesn’t seem like a lot,” I said genuinely confused.

“Sure, it doesn’t to you. You’re old—no offense…but, like, we’re just in different stages, you know? I’m in college and she’s still in high school, asking her parents’ permission for everything.” Alys shoved the photo back into its sleeve and dropped it back into her bag. “Hell, she couldn’t even tell her parents about me. I’ve never been to her place.”

“So why go there?”

“Because even though I’m freakin’ pissed off, I still care about her. She’s been mass texting me, begging me to talk to her. I have to break things off for good, but I’m not going to be the d-bag that does it over the phone,” Alys folded her arms and leaned back in the seat. There was a frown on her berry lips.

Give her a Chelsea smile. Rip her flesh.

Go away. Please.

“I see.”

A sign on the side of the road caught my attention: Fifty Miles to Green Glen.

End her.

No. I like this one.

“I just, Christ. I don’t know what to do here. We’re supposed to meet at some coffee shop on Main Street so her mom doesn’t see us—like, even now I’m her secret…that kind of pisses me off.”

“Why?”

Alys groaned in frustration and whipped her head in my direction:

“Because that puts so much stress on something that shouldn’t be stressful! You know that feeling you get when you’re with someone you really care about—you just want to let everyone know how great that person is, and what they are to you?”

“No, I don’t.” I mumbled.

“Wait—what?”

Park the car. Crush her throat.

She’s nice to me.

“I don’t know that feeling…I’ve never met that person, I guess,” I repositioned my hands on the wheel to prepare for an upcoming bend in the road and avoid her curious stare.

“How old are you?”

“Forty-three.”

“Damn.” Her astonishment hit me straight in the gut and shook my feelings for her around. They loosened up enough that they were easier to see past.

Drain her. Leave her as roadkill.

I don’t know…

My life had been wasted by a mixture of padded rooms, antipsychotics and shallow bids to fix me. I knew long ago that wasn’t possible, but no one listened to reason. I was a project, a box to be checked on everyone’s list.

All the while, there was the ever-present foul voice that invaded my mind. It told me things about people and told me to do thing to them. It had been there as long as I could remember; my constant companion, and the only static thing in my long life.

It’s as real as the poor girl who sat next to me as she stared out into the grey Oregon sky. It was hungry for muscle, sinew and blood. It was always nagging, cajoling, and begged to be fed—and it didn’t stop until I made good on its wishes.

After I gave in and fed it, the voice will go quiet while it digests the emotions that lingered after my task. It sipped on them leisurely like it was tasting a fine wine.

Those are the times I was happiest.

Pure silence. Pure bliss. The scratched in my head left me and I was alone with my thoughts to plan and to try to get myself together again. It never lasted long, though. Eventually it’s hibernation would end, and it would begin its torment again.

It had been two years since it last fed. The foul voice demanded tribute. I hadn’t slept in four days. Instead I stayed up with the voice and tried to convince it to leave me.

I like that idea. Roadkill. Roadkill. Roadkill.

Will you leave?

I glanced over at Alys and debated on if I could kill the girl whose problems seemed so big. Her head was rolled to the window, but I could see from the side mirror that her eyes were closed.

The powder on her eyelids looked like two vacant sockets in the hazy reflection; a possible look into the future.

She let out a soft snore.

Do it and I’ll make you a deal.

The highway began to get curvy. I pondered the voice’s offer in absolute silence. I didn’t want to wake my passenger.

It was the closest to a ‘yes’ I’d ever gotten from the voice, and most likely the closest I was ever going to get. I had to decide her fate. How far was I going to go for peace and quiet?

I had lost so much to the voice over the years. My childhood, my parents, and a normal life. I was forty-three, yes, but I had years ahead of me, that, if I chose to feed the voice—could be quiet.

The loose dirt of the shoulder kicked up under the car’s tired as I hit the edge of the road. I crawled to a stop to make sure Alys remained asleep and put the car in park.

Roadkill. Roadkill. Roadkill.

The chatter kept pace with my heartbeat as I reclined in my seat and went for my bag. The thick canvas scratched and swallowed my arm as I fumbled around.

My hand finally grabbed the leather sheath for my brand new ten-inch hunting knife. I closed my fingers on the handle, my joints popped with every deliberate movement while my thumb flicked open the button closure for the sheath.

I jiggled the knife loose and brought it close to me while I examined the soft curve of the streel. Even in the overcast light the pristine metal gleamed.

I brought the knife with the sole intent to keep myself and my few belongings safe on the streets of Salem. There were a lot of folks in the homeless community that didn’t think twice to steal a peer’s property.

Luckily the size of the knife was enough of a deterrent that I never had to use it. this would be its first foray into the human body.

Alys let out a soft snore from the passenger seat and nestled further against the window. As I watched her, I thought of the girl she was going to see. How long would she wait in the coffee shop for Alys to arrive. Would she be sad? Angry?

Slice her.

Slice her.

With the knife in my left hand, my right was free to manipulate Alys into a more compromising position.

I jutted my hand out and grabbed a fist full of her deep pink hair. I pulled it taut as Alys grumbled and began to rouse. Her head lifted easily despite the semi-deadweight as she slowly regained consciousness.

Her eyes opened slowly and blinked away the last dregs of sleep.

“Are we there, yet?”

“Almost,” I poised the knife of the knife gingerly against the side of her neck, to mark where I would need to insert the blade to accomplish the job. I would do my damndest to keep her in the dark of her fate for as long as possible.

Alys frowned and tried to wiggle her head. My arm tensed which stopped any movement with a small jerk. A strangled cry came from Alys; her eyes slid my direction, wide with panic.

Slice her.

“Thank you for your help, Alys,” the sound of my soft voice mixed in with the rattle of the heater.

The slip of a knife into human skin always made me think of mushrooms and the tension in your jaw as you bit down on an especially large chunk. It was soft, but there was still a rather pleasant resistance…if you like mushrooms.

I liked mushrooms, myself so I took my time as I slid the blade through Alys’ acne spotted neck and buried the silver blade into her soft peach flesh.

Alys clawed at my arms and hands with vigor. Black polished nails pierced my tan skin over and over as she did her best to change her fate. Her legs flailed in the footwell of the passenger seat, feet connected hard with the interior plastic at intermittent rates.

As she thrashed, she cried for me to stop. Her screams had a musical quality to them, much like her voice. They filled the cabin of the car with perfect pitch until the destruction of her windpipe turned her squeals into wheezes.

Her hands now grasped at her own throat as she tried to catch her breath. The movement in her legs died down as well and only attempted the occasional jerk.

I continued to leisurely push my knife through Alys’ neck until the hilt rested against the entrance wound. I took a moment now that she was subdued to follow the small stream of blood from underneath the knife down to the collar of her teal t-shirt. It was not a dirty purple from the blood it soaked up.

Carve.

Alys spurted a small amount of the red fluid from her mouth in a sad attempt at speech. I knew what she was going to ask. It was what everyone asked in their time of death: ‘why?’

There was no point to tell her my motive. It wouldn’t soothe her. It would only make it harder as she contemplated her error getting into a car with a perfect stranger.

I took the moment to switch my grip on Alys’ hair to my other hand. I briefly left the knife buried in her unattended. Her magenta hair slid between my fingers effortlessly as her head bobbed forward and pushed another wheeze from her bloody lips.

I lifted her back up and took the knife again in the opposite hand. My body twisted in my seat for a better angle. Alys’ entire body tensed, her arms gripped onto anything within reach as I rotated the knife in the wound and began to saw my way to the front of her throat with a new-found enthusiasm.

Once I’m done, it’ll stop. Once I’m done, it’ll stop. Once I’m done, it’ll stop.

I repeated my new mantra with each stroke of the blade. The cords, tendons and cartilage gave way fairly easily for the knife thanks to the fine edge of the blade.

All movement on Alys’ behalf had ceased now as any will to move was hindered by her loss of blood. The front of her shirt was a viscous mess thanks to her slight forward lean that directed the flow down onto her front and into her lap.

I rocked the knife back and forth a few more times until the blade broke through the soft skin just above the hollow of her neck. A river of red that hadn’t yet escaped from the side of the gash followed.

There was still a faint gurgle that came from Alys, but it was softer than before. She was essentially done, but I was not.

Roadkill. Roadkill. Roadkill.

Luckily for me this highway rarely got any traffic mid-day, so I wasn’t worried about being bothered. The rest of the process would go quick, anyhow. Nothing more than to put the finishing strokes on my painting.

I released Alys’ head which slumped forward. With no solid neck to keep her head up, I watched as her nose stamped itself into the soggy fabric of her shirt. My seat groaned loud while I turned back to face front and exit the car. More work needed to be done, but there wouldn’t be enough room inside the vehicle for it to happen.

The freezing wind that blew down the highway snapped at me when the door opened. I shrugged my jacket tight around me as I went around the sedan to the passenger door to collect Alys. I needed to bring her to her final resting place. There could be worse places for her to end up, than in nature.

My slick fingers fumbled with the door handle. Unable to grip the smooth surface with any degree of reliability, I tried two or three times before I finally got a good grasp and pulled the door open as wide as it would go.

Alys’ dead weight was almost too much for me to carry out to the trees. Her upper body wetted down with her own innards made trying to carry the corpse a slippery affair. I let her tip out and onto the ground, her face hit the gravel and rocks hard.

I grabbed a boot and dragged her down the shoulder to the front of the car. It was still a chore, but it wasn’t as bad as what I’d tried to do before I changed my strategy. I completed my work as soon as she was a few feet in front of the bumper, just far enough that I figured I could see her from the driver’s seat.

Roadkill. Roadkill. Roadkill.

My knife worked with speedy accuracy. Every downward swing cut into the supple flesh below me.

Not enough. More.

I squatted down over her legs and plunged the knife deep into her round belly and chest. Pleasing the voice was paramount to earn my deal. If Alys had to look like a pile of ground beef by the end of it, I could live with that.

I had to live with the consequences of my actions as they slapped me in the face every day for most of my life. It was because I would let the voice wear me down ever since I was a child. This had caused me to spend the last few decades institutionalized.

My little sister, Rebecca was only an infant when the foul voice made its appearance in my life. It hissed that she kept my parents from me. it said she liked it when I cried and felt lonely.

It began to tell me ways to get my parents back. Leave her face down in her crib. Put her in the tub and turn the tap on. Simple things that required only a small action before I could walk away and let my young brain forget about what I’d done.

Even at five, I knew what it asked would get me into trouble. I lived with the voice’s interference until I was tired enough from insomnia that I told my mother about the voice and what it asked of me.

That was the first time they sent me away to live at the hospital. I lived there with doctors and nurses for years, always maintaining the existence of the voice.

It wasn’t until I was thirteen that it truly clicked that I would have to ignore the voice and pretend it didn’t exist to go back home. It did stop talking for a while. I finally got a taste of what silence within my own mind was like.

I finally went home on my fourteenth birthday, but it wasn’t to our house in Salem. It was to that run-down Victorian. My sister, who was almost nine now, treated me like an unwanted guest. The tables had turned as far as my parents were concerned. They had years of only two visits a month to make up for.

I had a normal life in Green Glen for one wonderful year. I enjoyed middle school and even had a couple friends despite my lack of social skills. Home life had finally calmed down to where my sister and I were friendly.

Then one day as we stood side by side brushing our teeth a thought that wasn’t mine forced its way in:

Jam the toothbrush down her throat.

No.

That was that. The voice was back, skulking around the edge of my active thoughts and waited to pop in and tell me to brutalize someone. Anyone. It grew hungry and insistent at a maddening pace and demanded its pound of flesh.

I saw it for the first time that night accompanied with the stench of death. It was a pale creature, faceless save for a vertical gaping maw of huge jagged teeth. It stood in the corner of the room all night and whispered into my mind—into my ear and told me everything it knew my sister thought about me.

I kept quiet. I knew if I told my parents the voice was back that I would be in a car back to the hospital without so much as a discussion. I couldn’t go back there. Green Glen, my friends, even my sister were things I didn’t want to miss out on.

A month later, my parents left for a weekend stay in Salem, and left Rebecca and I to our own devices. It was a weekend and friends were busy for both of us. she was being bratty as usual. The voice was hungry.

Break her. Drain her.

Leave me alone.

Rebecca was in her room at her desk to write in her journal. Her curly hair fell over her shoulders and created a privacy curtain around her face. I watched her as I paced up and down the hall as she continued to jot down her thoughts unaware of the argument going on inside my mind.

Break her. Drain her.

I can’t.

Why not? She hates you, you know.

Not this again.

She’s mad you came home.

She’s over it.

No. She hates you. Look at her.

And?

It would be so easy. Drain her.

Go away.

This went on for hours throughout the house. Rebecca had moved to the den to watch TV. I was never far behind. I strode around fists clenched as I battled the voice until it said something new:

I’ll leave you alone if you drain her.

Promise?

I promise.

That night I clocked Rebecca over the head with my wooden baseball bad and dismembered her in the old clawfoot tub.

This was years in the making. Finally seeing the splotches of red pop against the white tile of the bathroom set my mind at ease and I became aware that this was inevitable. I cleaned myself up in my parent’s bathroom and spent the rest of the weekend asleep. I had a lot to catch up on.

I met my parents at the door when they got home and owned up to what the voice told me to do. I asked them not to go upstairs. They didn’t need their last memory of Rebecca to be what I had done.

I went back to the state facility immediately. There was no arguing on my part. Maybe I could get some use out of my therapy now that my mind was quiet. There was peace in my head for the rest of my time there. I finally got out about two years ago, back in 2002.

The mass of blood and slash marks on Alys made her unidentifiable. She would be found, but would she ever make it home?

The crunch of dirt and rocks beneath my feet as I headed back to the open passenger door accompanied me on my mission to make sure Alys would have more than a stranger’s funeral.

I grabbed her bag to bring it back, but as I lifted it out of the car, the haphazardly placed photo holder fell out and onto the seat. Two smiling faces stared up at me from the upholstery.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and pulled the photo from the clear plastic case. I unfolded it and studied the faces of the kids in the picture. Young. Full of life and happiness.

Them.

What about them?

They need you.

They don’t need me.

Cut them. End them.

Leave me alone.

Not until you end them. Do you want your deal?

What do I need to do?

End them.

I scrutinized the picture for a few moments. I had to get acquainted with their faces. Green Glen was small, so it wouldn’t be too hard to find them. Maybe the library still has yearbooks stocked.

Well?

So, if I end them, I’m free?

Yes.

I dropped the picture back into the bag and walked the items back to Alys and the ever-growing puddle of blood underneath her. I set the bag down and gave my work last once-over.

Leave. Find them. Hunt them.