The end

The door screeched as I pushed it slightly with my finger. The house looked unwelcoming. However, I had to confront him. Whether I'd live or die. My body was shaking uncontrollably, my mouth dry. My heart beat off my rib cages like a game of ping pong.1

The man was sitting in a chair, his back turned to me. I didn’t know if he had noticed me yet, but I was praying he didn’t. It was like the final scene in a horror movie. He would die, or I would. There was no one left to kill, no one left to torture but me.2

From the minute I stepped into this disserted town I knew something was wrong. The people here looked at us as if we were dying. And they knew we were. They turned a blind eye to all of it. They were just as guilty as him. There had been only a few of us on the bus. It was headed to Mexico, though my stop was right on the edge of Texas. Other than me there had been four other people: The driver, a young guy who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. A girl around my age, 18, with the beginnings of a baby bump. Her boy friend who looked torn between leaving at every stop or staying. And a middle age man who looked as if he had been to hell and back. Four people he had killed in only a matter of two days, and I was not ready to be his fifth.3

I crept closer trying to make as little noise as possible. He still didn’t seem to notice me as I crept across the squeaky, dusty old floor boards. As I neared him a weight had settled itself in my stomach. I pulled out the knife I had been hiding in the coat pocket and held it out. When I got close enough to reach I began to stab the back of his neck. He didn’t fight back only flopped over onto the floor.4

I let out a scream as I studied the mangled face on the body. The sleek black hair was streaked with blood, the piercing grey eyes open wide and glassy, and the mouth was slack and looked broken. I stumbled away from the body holding in another scream. I opened my mouth and threw up. I had never seen something so horrible. Tears started running down my face as I ran for the door, trying to escape. My hand was already on the rusty brass knob when I felt a searing pain run up my back. I fell to the floor and felt three more stabs of pain before everything went black.