Mommy Dearest

I

1

I had never been really good at anything up until the winter of 1941. The world spun around me and I watched it pass, not lifting a finger to stop it. I thought to myself if I even could lift a finger to stop it or if I even wanted to.
  My mother always told me "Alfred, do you know what your problem is?" I would always reply with a "No ma'am." She would then say, "Your problem is you’re too Goddamn shy for your own good! If you were ever given the chance to do anything I don't think you'd do it! You'd be too scared to do anything about it!" At that point I would just hang my head low and walk off to my bedroom.
Mother never meant to be as callous as she came across, or at least that was the lie I told myself so I could keep loving her. Really I wasn't even sure if
I did love her. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I was going to attend her funeral. I felt terrible for thinking such things but at the same time I felt I was being true to myself.
I had never questioned anything in my life or what I had been taught. I always fell into place with everyone else. I was a square I suppose. Parted hair, glistening white teeth, ironed clothes, tucked in shirt, shined shoes, the whole sha-bang. Mother dressed me of course but not in the sense of actually putting my clothes on. She just chose them for me. I conformed, never objected, and everything was fine. My family politics teetered on a string that stretched the entire Grand Canyon and one slight tip in my favor or my mother's would cause it to tumble into the abyss. That was a place I did not want to go.
My father had committed suicide in 1937. I was 15 then. He took his face off with two barrels of a shotgun in our basement at the old house, a place I did not want to go to ever again. My mother kept the reasons and the why of my Father's suicide for a long time. To this day I don't really know why he shot himself.
I suppose like all the other casualties of suicide in the world he was just unhappy but that wasn't a good enough explanation for me. I was unhappy. Did that mean I was going to blow my face off? I will not lie, I had certainly thought about it and I had held the very same shotgun that my father used in my cold, lifeless hands one bleak November night. In that moment I felt such a rush of terror and realization that I nearly dropped the gun causing it to discharge. Mother would've been angry, hell, enraged to a point of no return is more like it.
After my Father's suicide in 1937 we moved to Allendale, Rhode Island. It was a pleasant and quaint little town. A town where everybody knew who you were right down to the shoe size. I will admit, upon my first inspection of the down when I was 16 I thought it to be rather odd. Actually I found it rather horrifying. I did not like the closeness of everything and everyone. The people were so friendly and kind to one another. Now of course I advocate the practice of friendship and such, but these people in this town transcended the lines of friendship into sheer creepiness.
After a year I was quite familiar with the town and I even started to like it. The culture shock wore away as did the scars of time. My Mother had slipped into a deep depression and began to drink heavily. I stayed away from home as much as I could. She would beat me if she got mad enough or depressed enough. She said she was sorry afterwards and that things were just too much.
It was in Allendale that I realized I loathed my Mother and it was then that I thought and still do think a little that my father's suicide was a direct result of how much of a bitch my mother was. There was no other way around it. I don't like calling her that but when she beat me and threw bottles of cheap scotch and brandy at me there was no other words that came to my mind, no adjective or word strong enough or powerful enough to curse her. She was just a bitch.


2

Mother died in the spring of 1941. She died of complications due to alcoholism. That was a nice way of saying she binged on scotch and liquor one night and drank herself to death. The final nail in her coffin was when she took the bottle of downers. I found her body the morning after she took them. The doctor’s never knew she took them because I never told them. Like my father, my mother committed suicide and took the easy way out of life.
What a great example Mother. Thank you.
I buried her in the Allendale Cemetery at the corner of Oak Ridge Dr. and Main Street. If there was such thing as a beautiful place to put dead bodies at, Allendale Cemetery was it. It was filled with large, towering oak trees that swayed gracefully in the wind. The leaves on the branches would fly off and dance gracefully to the luscious green grass below and sit perfectly still. It was as if the leaves belonged there. In the fall the trees turned a blood red shade yet despite their morbid color they still retained this awe striking beauty.
The Cemetery itself was laid out perfectly. Nice rows and columns of gravestones lined the field in sat in. None were tarnished; none were old, no cracks, no blemishes, and no visible signs of age.
Amazing how something dead and gone can still have a life of its own breathed into it.
I buried Mother on the far left side underneath the tallest and oldest oak.
When I found her that morning dead lying in bed I was angry and hurt at her. She had left me nothing and had left me all alone to fend for myself. I thought of just turning her corpse over to the state and letting them handle it but the more I thought about it and the more I sat in my Father’s favorite recliner the more I actually pitied my Mother. When I really reflected upon it now, in her waning days she was so helpless. She walked the house and shuffled her feet. In fact she hadn’t beaten me in a week.
I remember her last words to me the night before she killed herself with the pills. She told me, “Son, I’m sorry for the things I’ve done to you and I’m sorry your father had to leave us so long ago.” Naturally I was angry at her and resented her to the core and I just nodded in acknowledgement and continued reading by the fireplace.
I never even had the chance to tell her I loved her. Then again, I wasn’t even sure if I did.





3

I dropped out of college that summer. There was nothing left in Allendale for me. I kept the house though. I figured why bother selling what was mine? The house was paid off in full. I would use it as a summer house if I had some reason to come back to Allendale.
On the morning of December 15th, 1941 I closed the door to the family house, locked the door tight, picked up my suitcase of all my belongings and got into my car.
I sat in that car for the longest time in completely silence. My hands gripped the leather steering wheel tightly and my eyes were fixated on the cemetery which I could see beyond the house. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity I sighed deeply and started the car. The engine roared and I put it into gear. I slowly backed out of the driveway and took one look last look at the house.
As I turned down the long street I turned on the radio and turned it down to a low dull roar so that Doris Day’s voice was just barely audible over the running of the car. The car itself was sleek and looked brand new. It was a light shade of yellow with silver trimming. My Mother had paid a pretty penny for it and it showed. On the inside the seats were covered in genuine leather, white, with a hint of yellow that made one think of mustard. The carpet was white inside so that any slight blemish on one’s shoes would leave an immediate imprint in it. The carpet was filthy, full of memories and times long past. A place I didn’t want to remember.
The dash was clear as day and the speedometer had big white lettering so you knew exactly how fast you were going down the highway and in the middle a tiny, thin red needle that pointed to the exact speed. All the gauges and little lights on the inside were perfect. The glass that covered it was as smooth as a baby’s bottom and crystal clear.
It was a nice car I thought.
I pulled down Ridgeview Street and drove steadily along it noting all the lovely trees and the old historic feeling of downtown Allendale. Some of the buildings were 50 years old. Some older. Even the new ones had that old rustic, aged feeling to them. I liked it; it reminded me of my hometown. A place I wish I could return to.
As I pulled up to a 4-way stop I looked both directions, smiled a bit, and realized that I was leaving this place behind me once and for all and somehow I didn’t really give a damn. Nor did the people that knew me and knew what I was all about which was more or less the whole town. I pulled out onto the street and started going straight. Then, the second car hit the passenger side of my car.


4

The sudden shock of an accident is what the worst is. It’s not the after injuries, no matter how bad they may or may not be, but it’s the first 10 seconds of horror and realization after you’ve been hit. Your heart races like the horses at the derby, your brow fills with sweat, and sometimes, depending on how much of a bang up you’re in, you need a change of pants.
I needed a downer.
I sat there in the car for a long minute and stared at the man in the car who had hit me. He was doing the same thing, just sitting there, not lifting a finger to get out of his car. My eyes fixated on his and his eyes fixated on mine. I did not know what my face looked like at the time but by the look of sheer terror on the man’s face in the other car, I imagine it was one of anger, almost to the point of pure hatred.
After what seemed like an eternity I leaned over and popped open the glove compartment box and pulled my insurance information out. It was entirely the other man’s fault and I was going to make sure that he knew that. Maybe that’s why he looked so frightened.
After I had grabbed the necessary information from the car’s glove box, I shut it and closed it tight and listened to the music on the radio for a few more seconds. Not even Vera Lynn’s voice could sooth my angered soul right now. I turned the radio off and stepped out of the car and surveyed the scene.
All around me the leaves from the trees blew across the emptied streets. Stores were closed as it was Sunday and there was no one around at all, just I and the bumbling idiot that slammed into my car. I looked at the man in the car and noticed that he had still not moved. My patience was growing thin and at this point I went around to the other side of my car and looked at the damage.
It was totaled.
The man’s Buick had slammed very hard into the passenger side of my car. Thank God no one was driving with me; otherwise they’d be pinned between a Ford and a Buick. Might as well say they would be dead. The entire side of the car was trashed. The steel had crumpled like an angel food cake that had been slammed down on a counter and collapsed. Shattered glass and light bulb fixings were scattered all around. I then noticed a sharp pain in my arm. A piece of window glass had taken residency in my forearm. I was too angry and too dazed to remove it.
His car was more damaged than mine. Both of his headlights were shattered and the front end of his car might as well have just been cut off with a chainsaw. I looked into his car to see if the engine block and flew through the car and into his legs. How fast he had hit me and how the front of the car looked, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the man’s expression had been because he no longer had any legs.
The engine block was still in the car.
So was the man.
I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and walked over to his car and knocked on the glass. Waiting a minute to get out of a car was one thing, but taking ten minutes to get out was inexcusable.
“Open up.”
The man sat there and just kind of stared at me and reached for his insurance cards.
I beat on the glass harder and said, “Open up!”
The man was now frantically searching for his things. I had lost all patience at this point. I gripped my hand around the car’s door handle and flung the door open. It fell off its hinges onto the street. I hadn’t done it, it was already damaged I could tell and by my pulling on it, I had finished it off.
“W-what the hell are you doing Mr.?” said the skittish man in the car. He was now cowering back in his seat from me. I thought to myself: ‘yea, you better slink back you rat bastard.’
5

Alfred had lost his temper at this point. The man in the car was slinking back and cowering away from him. For good reason as well. Alfred’s eyes were a light with fury and anger. He was breathing heavily in the cold air, his breath even fogging the pieces of shattered glass on the ground.
He grabbed the man by the arm and forcibly threw him out of his car. A bone snapped. The man’s arm had been broken.
The man screamed in agony and Alfred walked over to him and kicked his broken arm.
“Shut up! Shut the hell up!”
“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, please, stop! I’ve got the insurance and everything.”
“What don’t you understand about the words shut up pal?”
Alfred grabbed the man’s broken arm and yanked it hard pulling him along the ground. The man’s screaming was likely to raise the dead this morning. He kept dragging along the road to the passenger side of Alfred’s car.
“Do you see that?”
“S-s-see what?”
Alfred’s eyes flicked hate and he slammed the man’s head into the cars roughly, but not roughly enough to actually do any real harm.
“The cars you idiot! Do you see the cars?”
“Yes! Yes!” The man was screaming in agony now. His forehead was cracked and bleeding and his arm had been broken. Alfred was just beginning.
“Do you know what this car means to me?”
The man was being a smart ass and spoke up “A lot?”
“Wrong thing to say pal.”
Alfred threw the man’s face into the side of his car. He let him go and let his face slide down the door. A shining streak of blood now was plastered across the light yellow paint.
“This was my Mother’s car! She died yesterday and now you ruined it! This damage is irreplaceable!”
The man was clutching his now broken nose and bleeding profusely.
“I’m sorry! Jesus Christ I’m sorry!”
Alfred kicked the man in the groin and watched him writhe. At this point, Alfred had completely blacked out and gone into a torrent of colossal rage.
“Oh God! Oh God! Stop! Please!”
“I’ll stop when you buy me a new car.”
“I-I can’t afford one right now! What do you want from me! I said I was sorry!”
Alfred slammed his head into the pavement and lifted his foot off the ground.
“Well. Today is your unlucky day friend.”
Alfred stomped on the man’s head hard and he lay there motionless.
Dead.
His leg twitched for a moment later and then nothing. Alfred had just killed a man in broad daylight in the middle of the city streets. Yet somehow one could not have asked for a better place to murder someone. There was no one in sight. The stores were closed, the streets were barren, and the houses were all dimly lit. The sun had barley even risen and most everyone was in church on the other side of town. It was just Alfred and the corpse.
Alfred smiled, wiped his foot on the ground and picked the body up and placed it into the man’s car. He placed him neatly and nicely in the front seat. He left the man’s seatbelt unbuckled and put his face down onto the steering wheel.
He started the car some and was actually able to back it out of his car. It was the perfect murder. The man died in the car accident. That’s all. No questions asked. He hit someone and that someone ran from the scene. No one would ever know it was Alfred.
Alfred got into his car and started it just fine. He turned the corner and started speeding out of the city. Within 5 minutes he was out of Allendale and in the countryside.






































II

1

When I came to I was in a hotel out in the country somewhere. I woke up with a killer headache. My eyes were hurt and my body ached terribly. I felt like I had just pummeled the life out of someone. I got up and went to the bathroom and stood at the mirror for moment horrified at what I saw.
My hands were covered in dried blood.
I ran outside and saw my car. It had been totaled. I surveyed it for a long moment looking over it and saw nothing on it.
I ran back inside the hotel room and saw a bloodied rag on the floor. There must’ve been blood on the car.
I paced back and forth in my room and panicked. Something had happened to me awhile ago, but I had no idea what it was. I remember getting rustled around and then I just kind of blacked out of that. I had no recollection of anything that had happened.
I looked over at the clock in the room. It was 10:30 AM. The last thing I remember was looking at my watch. It had been 7:30 AM. I had been out for 3 hours and couldn’t remember anything that had happened in that time.
I knew that I had got into a car accident, which was apparent just from the damage to my car. Maybe I had been injured in the accident and that’s where the blood on my hands came from.
I laid down on the bed and stared at the pale white ceiling and thought about everything that had happened the past year. Mother was dead. I was alone. I had dropped out of college. I was running from a past that I could not escape. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. I was traveling blindly.
And I liked it.
I lied there in the stiff hotel room bed for quite sometime. I got up and showered. The blood was rinsed from my hands and there was a bit on my clothes I noticed, but not enough for anyone to have noticed unless they looked under my suit coat. I changed clothes and got into my fanciest suit and walked to the check in desk. The woman at the desk had the news on the radio and was listening to it.
“This morning in the small community of Allendale a grisly discovery was made in the center of town. An out of town man named Joseph Alverez was found dead in his car at a 4-way stop in the center of town. The car had been in an apparent automobile accident. The front of his car was crushed. Police have released information that reads his right arm and nose were broken and his face had severe lacerations on them. Also, the back of his head has been crushed in. Ladies and gentlemen this is a grisly thing that has happened here. Police are looking for the second party of the accident for questioning. A $1,000 reward is out for his arrest. If you’ve any information-“
I reached over and snatched the radio and turned it off and placed it back on the desk. The woman behind the desk gave me a bewildered look.
“Now why on earth did you do that? I was listening to it!”
“I’m sorry ma’am. I just have a very easily upset stomach to that kind of stuff. Blame the war for it.”
“Oh, you’re a service man eh’?”
“Was.”
I had never been in the service and never planned on it, but now that I had dropped from college I was a prime candidate for the draft. I kept the story of me being in the war however. It made my life so much easier.
“I’m sorry son. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s ok ma’am.”
I cleared my throat and spoke again, “I need to check out now.”
“Check out? You just got here an hour ago. Why on earth do you need to check out?”
“Because I have to be on my way. I needed to rest for a bit. Hadn’t slept all night. My business is my own though thank you.”
She raised an eyebrow at him and said, “I don’t like your tone young man. I meant no offense but that’s no reason for you-“
“Listen lady! I don’t have time for this banter. Check me out. Now!”
The woman stepped back from the counter in fright and obliged.
I left the counter in a furious rage and started my car up and pulled out of the parking lot. I started back down the road and drove.

2

Alfred drove down the long country road for a bit further and pulled off to the side and sat in his car. He placed his head in his hands and began to cry hysterically. The idea that he had blacked out and killed a man flooded over him. He was horrified at the prospect that his hands could’ve murdered an innocent human being. The past few days’ events were taking their toll on him all at once.
He realized sitting there in the coolness of his car that he loved his Mother deeply and that he missed her. Despite here setbacks as an older woman and her brash callousness in his upbringing her loved the woman with every ounce of his heart. He loved her more than that but those were the only words that he could muster to mind. She was dead and gone now. There was no changing that. He beat himself up over the fact he never told her that he loved her and didn’t offer his help with her alcoholism. He blamed himself solely.
Once, when he was 16 he walked in on his mother during one of her binges. She had been a heavy drinker his entire life but she hid from him for the majority of it. At least up until his father killed himself.
He walked into her room and saw her nearly drowning herself in vodka and crying. He came up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“What’s the matter mother?”
She turned around fiercely and smacked him in the face hard, her nails leaving scratches all along his cheek.
“What did mother tell you about not knocking? Hmm? What did she say?”
She hit him again, this time harder. The scratches were bleeding now on his face.
He started crying and fled the room.
That was the first time his mother ever beat him. But now sitting there in his car on the side of the desolate road he really thought about that incident and its significance. He thought, no, he knew that he deserved to be beaten that night. All he was going to do was kiss her goodnight but he forgot to knock. He deserved that beating. He knew he did. It was fair punishment. And all the other beatings too. He deserved all those. After all, Mother wouldn’t beat him unless he did something wrong, right?
These were the thoughts that poured through his head as he sat on the side of the road and thought.
After awhile his mind drifted to thoughts of Alverez. The man he thought he killed. It had to be him. It all made sense. His car was totaled on the passenger side and Alverez’s car must’ve hit something on the side. But then he thought to himself, I’m not that violent. I wouldn’t do that. No way, no how. I could never kill a man over a car. It’s just a car. Mother’s car. His dead mother’s car.
Perhaps, he thought, maybe it was possible that some other man did it and he just ran off the road somewhere and blacked out everything had happened because he was so distraught. Yes. That was the logical explanation he thought. But then another thought flew through his mind, what if in the rage of someone hitting his Mother’s wonderful car he accidentally killed someone. That was the key word: Accidental death. Surely he didn’t mean to kill the man. But the way the radio announced his death was so gruesome. Hitting the side of someone’s car couldn’t have done that. Could it?
Then a horrific revelation came to mind. The woman at the hotel had seen his car. One couldn’t help but notice the damage on it. It was as clear as day. What if she called the police and gave him his license tag number? They would surely hunt him down. They would take him away. But most importantly that would take Mother’s car. No. They couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t let them. Never.
He pounded his fist on the dash board and cracked the smooth glass of the speedometer and turned the key to start the car. His eyes were a light with anger again. Blood was about to be spilled. Mother’s retribution would be swift.

3

Susan Miller ran the Last Stop Hotel in east Allendale Rhode Island. It was her Father’s before it was hers and her Father’s Father before his. It was her birth right to own the family business she supposed. She had seen many a queer folk come to her establishment. She even had a murderer stop for the night at her hotel. Now she didn’t know he was a murderer at the time however. She knew he was odd, but never thought a nice young man like himself could do such a thing. But one thing was for sure, she had never met anyone more peculiar and odd than that man who left a little over an hour ago from her Hotel.
He signed the ledger as “Alfred Bacchus”. It was a peculiar name. Peculiar name fits a peculiar fellow she told herself. He came in looking quite calm. Too calm for her liking. His nice white button down shirt was in shambles. It was torn at some places and was all sweaty. Very sweaty for 9:30 in the AM.
She gave him an odd look over and said, “Can I help you young man?”
He replied calmly and placidly by saying “You can sure as hell try. I need a room.”
“Well I’ve got plenty of them. You and on other man are staying here. I’ve got 17 rooms. Take your pick.”
He loosened his tie some and cracked his neck and said, “Any will do. Just give me a room.” He laid down 15 dollars on the table. “No more questions eh’?”
She had never seen that much money at one time in her life. She nodded and obliged him and gave him the key too room 17.
She blinked and came back to the current time and place. Very odd man that was she thought to herself. She sat down in the little chair by the desk and turned the radio back on and listened to the music emit from it. Just then a radio broadcast came on.
“Attention please, your attention please. Police are looking for a light yellow Ford car with a smashed in passenger side. If you see a car like this call the Allendale police department at once. A $1,000 reward will be given to the person who calls in. Of course, all calls can remain anonymous.”
The radio broadcaster announced the message again and she sat there in her chair wide eyed. She thought back to an hour ago.
The odd man was driving a light yellow Ford car and she noticed that it had a good bit of damage to it. She figured he was just tired and ran off the road into a ditch or something and that why he was acting so peculiar and his car was damaged. She never thought twice about it. But now that she had heard the news of the man being murdered in a car accident scene and seeing this man’s car she put two and two together. The man that drove that yellow car had killed a man.
She picked up the receiver on the phone and reached down to dial the police in hopes she could get the $1000 reward and have the police track the man down before he killed again. Plus, she thought, the newspapers would certainly interview her. Think of the business she could get from that.
Just as her hand reached down to dial the yellow ford pulled back into the parking lot and out emerged the man. Fury and anger in his eyes. Susan was scared for her life.

4

He stormed into the office building and without even saying a word he picked Susan up by her shirt and slammed her into a wall. The pictures on the wall feel and broke on the floor like water on rock.
“What do you think your doing picking that phone up?”
She said nothing and instead kicked him right in the groin.
He fell to his knees and released his grip on her. She ran to the fireplace and picked up the fire poker.
“One more step and I’ll crush your head in like you did to that man!”
He stood up from the ground and looked at her calmly and said, “What on earth are you talking about Ma’am?”
“Don’t play games with me! You killed that man in the car! I know you did. Their looking for you. Got a big cash reward out for you. I plan to collect on it!”
“Oh?” He looked at her evilly and picked up the phone and ripped its chord from the wall. “Well,” he said “Dead men, or should I say women, tell no tales.” He threw the phone at her head and she swung to hit it and block it but missed and the phone hit her square in the face knocking her back onto the ground. She passed out.
“Ouch. That must hurt. Well. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
He picked up her lifeless body and threw it over his shoulders. He stepped out into the blinding sunlight and walked into the street. He laid her body down in the middle of it and went back inside the office. Places out here in the middle of nowhere had guns in them; they needed them to protect the owners from crazies like himself. He laughed at that thought.
He pillaged through the office tearing up cabinets and drawers, turning over desks until he reached underneath the main desk and found a magnum taped to it.
He scoffed and said, “Sneaky little woman. Shame she has to go.”
Meanwhile outside in on the cold hard ground Susan was coming to, but she was unable to move. Her body was so weak from being thrown on to the ground that she couldn’t move a leg or an arm to even try to move. She then realized, lying there on the road, that she was going to die.
He stepped back outside, gun in hand, and walked to her.
“You know what I’ve always wondered the most?”
She said nothing but tried to crawl away to no avail.
“I’ve always wondered what it’s like knowing that you’re going to die in a matter of moments. Like those guys on death row. Can you imagine what it’s like seeing the hangman’s noose? God, what a fright. How do you feel?”
Again, she said nothing. She was resigned to her fate but tried to avoid it at all costs.
“Hm. Well Ma’am. Next time don’t ask so many questions and be so damn inquisitive and this kind of thing won’t happen. Oh. Wait. There won’t be a next time.”
At this Alfred laughed manically and stepped into his car and started it. He backed out of the parking lot and continued in reverse at least 200 ft away from Susan’s dying body. He put the car in neutral and revved the motor and grinned. His teeth showed through his grin, it was one of those nasty, evil, cunning, and somehow gentlemanly grins, the kind you only read about in old western stories.
He put the car into gear and sped down the road. Susan looked at the oncoming blinding hulk of steel and yellow and her eyes widen.
Alfred sped over her body and hit it at full speed. Her body bounced beneath the car and he felt, and heard it, hit the bottom of it. He looked in his rearview mirror and watched the body roll and bounce a little into the nearby ditch. Blood had been spilled again. Mother’s retribution had been served.


5

When I awoke again I was seated in my car at the same spot in the road where I had stopped before. That was a vast improvement of the last time I woke up. It was now night. I must’ve passed out. Everything that had happened in the past few days all came rushing into my head at once and I had to stop otherwise I would’ve driven off the road and died. But now, sitting here in the dark I thought to myself that might have been the best thing to do.
No sooner had I awakened did I find it.
There was a .44 magnum lying in my passenger seat, or what was left of it. I had no idea or no recollection of how it had gotten there. I check my body to see if there was blood on it. There was none. I was relieved but only for a moment.
I stepped out of the car and closed the door and on it, by the reflection of the moon, I saw blood splattered all across it. I stepped back in horror at what I saw and cupped my mouth with my hands. I stumbled to the front and noticed that it had been hit by something or someone, and still more blood was on the front bumper.
Had I killed again? I couldn’t’ have! I just simply passed out on the side of road after thinking and sobbing over everything that had happened. There was no way anybody else had been murdered by my hand, could there?
I slumped back into my car and ran my fingers through my hair. I glanced over at the gun and picked it up. Its long silver barrel glistened like the stars in the sky as the moonlight reflected off of it. It was almost blinding. I set the gun in my glove back on the seat and leaned my head back onto the cold leather.
What was I going to do now? I could go back to the hotel where I was at for the night but that would be too risky. The woman there would get suspicious. I turned the key of the car and started down the road again, not knowing where I was going or when I was getting there.
For the first time in all of my life I was truly afraid of what was happening. I had blacked out twice today and could not remember what had happened during the hours I had blacked out. One thing was for sure, my head was throbbing and I had murdered a man unintentionally this morning. I had to find somewhere safe to hide.
I drove down the road and turned the radio on and listened to the music that played. Music always soothed my nerves, or at least I hoped it would. I took out a cigarette from my coat pocket and began to smoke it as I drove down the desolate country road.
At the signpost up ahead I saw a flickering light of a hotel. I decided to stop there for the night. I placed the gun into my belt and closed my coat up and walked inside.
“Evening,” I said to the man at the desk, “How are you tonight?”
“Cold.” The man laughed a little and gave me a warm smile.
“Got any rooms to rent out?”
“As a matter of fact I’ve got plenty of rooms to rent. Which one do you want?”
“Any is fine.”
“Alright.”
The man handed him a key to room 12.
“Right outside to your left, room 12. Have a goodnight.”
“You too sir.”
I went outside and got my suit case from the car. The blood on the side and front bumper was gone now. It must’ve come off when I hit the puddle in the parking lot. Thank God. No clean up tonight.
I went to my room and collapsed on the bed. I was out like a rock in 5 minutes.











III

1

Alfred awoke with a start the next morning. There was a thunderous bang outside his hotel room door.
“Hey! Open up in there! This is Allendale police department! Open up!”
Alfred shot straight up and gripped hold of the gun and cocked it.
“You’ve got 10 seconds to open this door before I break it down!”
The hotel clerk’s voice was heard, “Come on pal, open the door. Don’t cause anymore trouble than you already have!”
Alfred got up slowly and carefully making sure as to not make a sound. He was not going to jail for the murder of two invalids that had no place here. Besides, they got in the way of Mother’s car. No one got in the way of that. No one.
“Alright, I’m counting!” The police officer said loudly through the door. “One, two, three-“
Alfred raised the gun to eye level, ready to shoot the police officer as soon as he broke in.
‘TEN!”
The police officer shot the lock on the door and kicked it down. He entered the room and stopped as soon as he saw the magnum raised at his head.
“Whoa, whoa,” the officer said, “put that hand cannon away son, we just want to talk.”
Alfred stood firm, the officer stood scared, and the clerk stood in awe.
“I don’t want to hurt you, I just need to take you down-“
A loud, thunderous bang was heard and all ears went deaf for a moment. Albert watched the police officers head fly back from the speed of the bullet and watched him fall on his knees and then face first onto the green carpet for the hotel.
Alfred had just signed his death sentence.
The clerk stood there, horrified at what he saw and grazed his eyes from the corpse of the officer to the cold, unrelenting, dead eyes of Alfred. He couldn’t get a word out before Alfred shot him in the head as well.

2

Alfred came back to conciseness all at once. The loud crashing sounds of the gun fire had brought him back to reality. He stood there and widened his eyes and dropped the gun in his hand and looked at the bodies that lay dead in front of him.
He turned around and ran to bathroom and threw up. Sickened from the sight and from himself it was all he could do to hold it back another second. He had just awaked to find himself the murderer of two innocent men, one being a police officer.
One thought pummeled through his mind now: when and where were they going to catch him? He had just killed a police officer in the line of duty; there was no way around it. The gun was in his hands when he came to. He was going to die now for sure. They would catch him, try him, and then fry him in the chair for each murder that had happened.
He knew what he had to do now; it was just a matter of getting back and doing it.
He pulled the bodies into the hotel room and stacked them neatly in the bathtub, his face pale and as gaunt as any human’s could possibly conjure. He pulled the shower curtain closed and grabbed his belongings and closed the door as much as he could. It had been broken he could see from the police officers gun shot.
He went to the main desk and hung his room key up and picked up the day’s paper.
He was horrified at what he saw next.
The headline read: “Woman Run down by Ford Car Killer.”
He dropped the paper and ran to his car and was shaking uncontrollably. He had murdered four people in two days. But why? For what reason? What on earth possessed him to-he stopped and looked up and outward through the windshield of the yellow ford.
“It was the car.” He said to himself.
It made perfect sense. It was clear now. The car was his mother’s and she was an angry woman. Never wanted anyone in her way and she would stop people at all costs if they got in her way. She wouldn’t take no for answer. But why? Why on earth did I do it? What did they do to-he stopped again and his eyes widened larger still.
Of course, he thought, the man hit the car and damaged it, the woman wanted to call the car in and the hotel clerk and police officer were here to take it. But still! Does that merit the death of a human being?
Alfred jumped from his car and kicked it hard, hurting his toes.
He screamed at the top of his lungs and sank to the ground sobbing. He had no idea what was going to happen now, but one thing was obvious, he had to stop driving the car, otherwise the bodies would keep piling up. It was like it controlled him. He had no choice in the matter.
He backed away from the monster and jumped into the police car and started down the road back to Allendale, speeding and going as fast as he could and blaring the sirens.

3

By nightfall the entire town knew I was back. They knew I had owned the monster car and that I was responsible for all the death that had happened the past two days. What they didn’t know is that it wasn’t my fault! It was mother’s fault! She had come back to haunt me even in death! I hated that woman! Hated her! And now she was back for vengeance and she wasn’t going to stop until either I had died or every person I came into contact with was dead.
She embodied that car. They had to have known that. The people had to have seen that. She was cold, callous; mean looking, angry, sleek, and sly, just like that goddamned car was! The car was her and it was brought to life by all the bad memories and sorrow that had happened since she bought it when I was 16. All the malice, all the tears, and all the abuse that had been spat at me from that age was poured into that car.
I raced through the town on foot now, abandoning the police car at the edge of town. The people were out in groups searching for me. All the stores were open and all the lights were on. It was night, and it was cold. There was only one place safe I could go to and escape to: the cemetery.


4

It was now midnight and Alfred reached the cemetery. The gates were closed so he hopped them. The town’s people were still hunting for him. In the distance he could see his house burning to the ground. The people had lit it on fire in hopes of smoking him out, quite literally.
He ran to the back of the graveyard and stumbled over graves at every step until he finally feel to his knees at his mother’s grave, still laced with the flowers that had been placed there at her funeral.
The rain started to pour down now and thunder crashed loudly in the night sky.
“Why mother?! Why?! What did I do this time?! I can understand the abuses as a boy, I deserved them, but this? Was it because I never told you I loved you? Was it because I did something so horrible to you that it couldn’t be forgiven? Or is it that you’re just a bitch!”
The thunder crashed loudly again and the people heard his screams and laments and gathered around the gates, flashlights in hand and all.
He slammed his fists down on her grave and yelled “Answer me! Answer me woman!”
The people looked at him in terror and some in pity. To think that a man as young and vivacious as Alfred could have fallen so low and gone into such a mental state.
“Fine mother!” he yelled to the grave. “Fine! I hope, that this one last act will make you happy. That’s all I ever wanted to do Mother. I wanted to make you happy. I couldn’t even do that. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled the gun from his coat pocket and placed the barrel into his mouth. He pulled the trigger and he shot himself.
The thunderous bang made the town’s people jump back in fright and the sight of Alfred shooting himself made the women scream in terror.
His lifeless body swayed aimlessly for a few moments, the blast of the magnum throwing him off balance.
He swayed for a few moments longer until he fell face first into a freshly dug grave beside him and lie dead, cold, and still.
The gravestone above him read: “Alfred Bacchus 1922-1941”