Arson and Carrots
"What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know"
"You can't just leave me here, you're not anonymous anymore."
"I know!"
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I DON'T KNOW!"
"Your temper isn't going to help anything."
"Shut up! Shut up! You're dead! You don't talk!" I stretched my leg out and kicked her. This was so cliche. Bodies only talk in movies. But I guess the only thing holding me in reality was the feeling of cabinet doors digging into my back.
"You don't even look like me. Who would believe you're my daughter?"
"I don't know. Damn it Tammy, maybe I was adopted! Not like you have any say in the matter. You're just laundry now as far as anyone is concerned."
With that I stood up and scooped her (and all of her linens) into my arms. I would put her in her Jeep and figure out what to do with her when I was far away from this place. But it was terribly hot out, and her kitchen was a disaster. The whole neighborhood would be smelling her by the time I could leave if I left her in the Jeep.
I took her to the living room and set her on the couch.
"You know the mechanic closes at five."
She was right. I didn't have time to clean up anyway. If I wanted to make a convincing escape I had to leave by 4:30 in her Jeep, with her body, my car, and what was left of your bones in tow. You would have thought this was hilarious.
-----
I stood up and wiped the oil off of my face. "What are you laughing at?!"
"Your face," you spat out between guffaws.
"I did what you told me to!"
"Well you obviously did it wrong." I wiped my face on your shirt. "Hey, this was new!"
"Whatever." The oil made a slow path across the cement floor. "You're cleaning that up, this is your fault."
"Hell no I'm not! You didn't have to be an idiot about it. Why would you let the oil out straight onto your face?" you asked, stifling another giggle. "You got yourself into this mess, you clean it up."
-----
Your words echoed in my head, or in the kitchen. I wasn't sure which. Like with the oil, I had to be creative here.
I hated to always be setting things on fire, but I had no other ideas. It dawned on me then that it was finite creativity more than anything that doomed a serial killer.
Am I a serial killer? I don't like to think that I am. Sure, I've killed either 3 or 23 people (God knows if there were people in that diner, or if I was actually even there). If it's the former, I think I still fall in the category of murderer. If it's the latter, then I would probably be considered a mass murderer, which sounds less scary. A mass murderer kills your government officials. A serial killer waits in your bedroom until you're safely tucked in.
In any case, I didn't have much time. How do I start a house fire without it looking like arson? Realistically, it didn't need to be a big fire. Just enough that the bloody mess I made would conveniently disappear. Fortunately for me, I had opted to make this bloody mess in the kitchen, so I didn't have to set up her bedroom for some candle-riddled rendez-vous or something awkward like that. No, all I had to do was start dinner.
In retrospect, I suppose it didn't matter what I put in the large soup pot I found in a cabinet next to the oven. However, I was so nervous that some bit of my soup would survive the fire that I couldn't stand to make it out of whole carrots and leftover cereal, which was what I found first.
Instead, I peeled and cut up the carrots and some potatoes too, and put them in the pot with all of the meat in her freezer. I'm not sure if meat cooks in boiling water (I can't cook) but I know it cooks in fire, and by the time anyone sees it, it will be done cajun-style.
Now to start this fire...I thought about putting a towel between the burner and the pot, but I wasn't sure if that would work. I needed something that would start for certain and be hard to stop...a grease fire! But where would I get grease?
I made bacon and knocked it over.
Well this was hardly believable. Why would I be making bacon and a stew at the same time? I guess that didn't matter, but how would it get knocked over when nobody was home?
Where was that cat?
I found him in the living room, curled up asleep on top of some sheets and his dead owner. "Heeeere kitty kitty..." I cooed, holding a piece of bacon out as an offering. He stretched and came over to me; I snatched him up before he had a chance to run off.
After making sure it wouldn't burn him, I set his paws down in the spilled bacon grease. He struggled mildly as I opened a nearby window and tossed him out. Giving me an alarmed meow, he took off into the backyard. Sorry, kitty.
It appeared that the bacon puddle was accessible from the window I threw the cat out of. I grabbed a lighter, a red one with a long black neck, and went to pack up my dead surrogate mother.
____________________________
I had watched you hitch a boat trailer to your truck enough times to know what I was doing. It was a good thing she drove a Jeep; they're built for this kind of thing.
The pastel-coated steak of a golfer emerged from a house nearby, this time heading toward his Mercedes with a whole bag of clubs. He set them down when he saw me.
"Do you need help with that?"
"No I'm good thanks" I replied, standing up and wiping the sweat off my face with the back of my arm.
Remember The Stranger by Camus, where the main character kills a man because it's too hot outside? I finally understood why.
I was in the Jeep with the motor running before he could say anything further. The damn thing was a stick shift, which I hadn't driven since my friend tried to teach me how a few summers ago.
My friends. I remembered them all. Their faces, their voices, their eye colors and their birthdays. I wondered if any of them had tried to get in touch with me after you and I disappeared. I'd imagine a few did, but I don't think I'm the kind of person you keep looking for. I was sure it had been weeks, at least, since any of them had thought of me.
I pushed the clutch and started down the street. Everything about this Jeep felt weird to me, from how high I sat to the weight of my car in the back to the fuzzy blue cover on the steering wheel. Everything seemed unnatural. I suppose it was only fitting; if I'm pretending to be someone else, the more things that are out of character, the better.
I had originally planned to set Tammy's house on fire right around five, when she would likely be getting off of the job I said she had and I might still be at the mechanic. Now though, it seemed too suspicious. That golfer would see right through it. First a new-found daughter, then a house fire, and then...well it was just too obvious. I had to think of something else.
I tried to turn as little as possible, to be able to return to her house. And because I'm not exactly the best at driving large conglomerations of vehicles, but that's beside the point. After fifteen or twenty minutes, or maybe several hours, I came to a Wal-Mart. What better place to abandon a car for a few days? Car unhitched, I retraced my path and went...home.
The next week went by in a blur. Every morning I would get up at seven, shower and brush my teeth (one of the benefits of house-sitting for someone you murdered is the free access to warm running water) and be out of the house by 7:45. I'd stay out until five, pacing grocery stores and loitering in bookstores. Anything to kill time. At night I'd watch television and try not to think about the continually worsening smell that oozed out of the laundry room.
Eating was difficult. The kitchen was sticky and smelled kind of like rot, but different than what I had, sadly, become accustomed to. This was not only Tammy decaying in the laundry room, but also the bits of her that were stuck to the cabinets, and everything I had taken out of the fridge to accommodate the large pot of carrots and raw meat, which also smelled. Coupled with the bacon grease (which I would have to add to before I left for good), it won the prize for the most unappetizing smell ever.
This went on for about a week. I continued the eight-to-five routine, even through the weekend. People could just assume she worked then or was out running errands, and I had no idea what day it was, anyway.
And then it was time. I woke up at seven, took a shower, brushed my teeth. I made myself breakfast: two eggs, over-easy. A side of bacon and a glass and a half of white grape juice. I tipped the frying pan on its side and made an awful mess of the stove before washing my hands and gathering my things. Well, her things really. Her cell phone, her purse, her keys, her body.
I wasn't sure if what I did next would work, but I couldn't think of any other reasonable option. I went to a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. For the next couple hours, I sat behind an abandoned building and smoked as many of them as I could. Having never been a smoker, I coughed, and then I puked, and then I coughed some more and passed out. Apparently it is possible to overdose on nicotine.
When I woke up, the pavement around me was sweltering, and I was so dizzy. I let out a nauseous "ugh" and just like I had hoped, my voice sounded husky, older, and not like mine. I sidled up the wall of the building and regained my balance. Was I ready to do this? I guess I didn't really have a choice.
Driving through her neighborhood, it appeared that I had chosen a weekday; cars were missing and garages were closed all down her street. I parked about three blocks from her house and went to do the deed.
I had just barely started driving away when her cell phone started ringing.
"Hello?"
"Is this Ms. Tamara Lowalter?"
Lowalter. "Speaking?"
"This is the Jameson County Fire Department."
"Oh my God."
stupidest fuckin thing i have ever read
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