Stories
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End of the Line
Pete had driven for miles in the same circle. His eyes burned like fire. He hadn’t slept. The cops were after him. He was like a rat in a maze. He needed to steal a car. He needed to eat. He needed to shit. But first he needed to ditch this piece of shit car. Stealing license plates was only going to take him so far. The radio kept spitting out the make and model and color of his car. 1976 Lincoln Continental Dark blue. License Plate number FGH 775. Right car wrong plates. It was an old Lincoln—a hand me down from his family’s Mortuary business which his Brother was running. It’s blue-black shell blended into the night. However, the morning sun was going to rise soon. A rat needed a place to lay low in daylight hours. Pete avoided lighted avenues and boulevards and drove down dark rutted roads. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Where could a hunted man go, he wondered? He saw scenes from the TV show Wild Kingdom and Pete imagined himself as an ape running with the hot gaping jaws of lions right behind him. He laughed at the thought of the ape’s blue and red ass. For a moment he had the foolish notion to paint his ass blue and run down the street naked. A helicopter buzzed over Pete’s car. Sweat dotted his forehead. He was a hunted man and delirious with fear. He peeped through his windshield like a man peering through a dirty pool of water. The helicopter buzzed away. Pete sighed. He pushed a button and the radio lit up. The news announced that the Leaky Eye had been identified as a forty-four year old Metro bus driver named Pete Chesterfield suspected in dozens of attacks on women. Button after button spat his name or something about his crime. He had attacked a little girl on his bus. He killed a young cheerleader in his home. A shop owner near the Settegast Rail Yard saw him kissing a girl on the bus. That one-eyed lying son of a bitch,
Pete spat. He may be armed and is considered dangerous. Armed with what Pete wondered--a tire iron in the trunk?
A peculiar chill ran down his spine as he heard his name called over and over. "I’m
