TW: violence and death, drunk driving
In 2020, my Critique Group challenged one another to write outside our comfort zones. Every couple of months, we select a genre and write a max. 2-page story for that genre. Our first challenge was to murder someone in 2 pages. What follows was my submission.
 |
Maybe Crow was losing his touch.
Loki’s stunt with the booby traps? Brilliant. The look on that man’s face when his own gun shot him was funny as hell, but it got Crow right worried. Clearly, Loki had been planning for years.
Below, Crow’s guy drifted toward a 1969 Dodge Dart. Crow had a sinking feeling. There was no way he was going to win this bet.
Veles’ bit with the combine harvester was as inspired as Loki’s: when the cop started mowing down that field, and no one noticed the perp until the conveyer jammed? Crow still ached from laughing.
The Dodge started on the third try. Crow groaned. There weren’t enough horses left in that engine to leave skid marks on the wet asphalt.
On the roof of the building opposite, Loki and Veles watched, arms crossed. They knew Crow was making it up on the fly. What was so innovative about a drunk driver?
But Crow had been busy, hadn’t he? Storms and drought and general misery didn’t just happen, did they? When his turn came, Crow was completely unprepared. So, here he was putting a drunk behind the wheel of a Dart and hoping for the best.
But the guy, damn him, was being cautious. Crow needed to do something about that. He landed on the roof and had a poke inside the man’s mind; there was an ex-girlfriend. Crow sent an image of the girlfriend. It worked. By the end of the block the car was going 23 k over the speed limit. Crow nudged the radio: it began playing ‘Layla’. By the time she’d got him to his knees, Dodge was doing 93 in a 50 and had missed two stop signs. Crow clutched the edge of the roof. This might actually work!
The car whipped past Loki and Veles, who were on top of a bus shelter. Loki checked his phone. Veles picked knots out of his beard.
Crow got mad, checked his admittedly sketchy memory of the rules of the bet, decided he didn’t care, and ZAP! Dodge turned last-minute onto the highway. He screeched along the asphalt, passenger side tires lifting…! Damn! The car evened out and Dodge – who’d spent the night complaining that broads didn’t like him – prepared to merge unscathed into the northbound lane.
Then CRUNCH. Tires squealed. A horn went off. Crow fluttered to the guardrail. Dodge stumbled out to inspect the damage. There would have been more, but not much can go wrong when a rusted-out Dodge Dart side-swipes a Smart car. Veles got a smug look about him.
The Smart driver was cold-sober and mad as hell.
“This is a MERCEDES!” he hollered. Dodge took one look at Smart’s sandals and remembered he hated leftist pinko commies. He threw the first punch, which was as much of a surprise to Crow as it was to Smart.
Loki whooped with laughter. Crow knew he was laughing at him, not the men. It turned out Smart hated drunks in ‘Lock Her Up’ t-shirts as much as Dodge hated commies. The second and third punches hit Dodge in the abdomen. The two men grabbed one another and wrestled pitifully.
“Boring,” Veles said. He tapped Loki on the shoulder. “You’re buying.”
“What?” Crow exclaimed. “I’m not done yet! No one’s dead!”
Loki started ticked off on his fingers. “Innovation. Surprise.” He looked at Veles. “What was the other?”
“Gore.”
Dodge threw a punch. Smart doubled over. “See? Gore!” Crow pointed at the blood trickling from Smart’s nose. Veles gave him a look that said, ‘you call that gore?’
Dodge, excited by the blood, grappled Smart to the ground. Loki shrugged at the men rolling in the road. Even Crow had to admit they were pathetic. Smart gave a half-hearted kick. Loki and Veles began walking away. “Hey!” Crow called. “I didn’t leave during your turns!”
The semi came over the hill doing 85. Rain streaked his windshield; the driver had been awake for 27 hours. He saw the Dodge and the Smart, swerved out of the way, horn blaring. If he felt the bumps under his wheels, he didn’t stop, and by the time he reached Windsor, the rain had washed all but a few strands of Smart’s ponytail off the grill.
Loki and Veles looked at the pancaked remains of the two men. Veles shook the brains out of his beard. Finally, Loki bowed extravagantly to Crow and declared him the winner.
No one was more surprised than Crow, but he accepted the win just the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment