A View from the Edge

“No! Don’t shoot!” Isaac screamed from behind me.

My hand was shaking terribly. I imagine I would have missed anyway with how erratically my wrist was seizing. I screamed in frustration.

“Gimme one reason!” My voice was jumping in a wild frenzy. How could he expect me to just drop the gun, get back into the car and ride off into the night? We searched and pled just to find him. And there he was, tied to the overpass on top of the vacant train tracks. We couldn’t have planned it any better.

And now Isaac was saying don’t. Don’t kill him. Don’t put a bullet through his worthless head and end it right here right now.

“Are you sure?” He asked like he was trying to coax me off the edge of a cliff.

If the adrenaline coursing through my veins didn’t have my head all foggy and my muscles spasming, I would have rolled my eyes. All I could see was the man in front of me. His hands all over my body, the sick smell of cheap whiskey and cigarettes covering his tongue. His tongue as he tried to stuff it down my throat. The constricting of my reflexes as I tired not to throw up into his mouth. I could feel the calluses of his fingers as they tried to move up my leg and under my skirt. He didn’t stop. How could I?

“Are you fucking serious?” I countered. My breathing was uneven. It was getting difficult to concentrate. I had to focus if I didn’t want to accidentally pull the trigger. I wanted to make sure I relished in every moment.

Rumour had it that he spent most of his time at a dive bar just outside of Detroit. We found him late one night, eyes fixed to a harsh looking woman with mascara rings around her eyes and cheap red lipstick on her teeth. Isaac got us a table closest to the washroom. I made sure to sit with my back to the bar while Isaac kept tabs on the drinks he ordered and each time he excitedly rubbed his junk. It was obvious what would happen next. He went to the washroom first and she tailed not some 10 seconds after. We decided to follow them in just as she settled between his legs. I used the bottle I grabbed before going in and shattered it over his head. There was little more satisfying than the sound of his skull hitting the grimy tiled floor.

Isaac pulled the woman up by her shoulders and threatened her to keep her mouth shut if she didn’t want any trouble. She didn’t, so she wiped her mouth, spit on the unconscious body and left like it was just another night, another washroom.

We struggled dragging his dead weight out of the back door, trying to be noiseless not to get caught. The car was hidden behind the dumpster with the trunk slightly open so we could throw him in.

Isaac drove through the small town, stopping at every sign, using his turn signals and checking his blind spots. My body was humming and I didn’t realize that I must have cut my palm on the bottle when it broke on impact. My blood mixed with his, ruining my t-shirt. I would have to burn it when this was all done.

I don’t know what made Isaac pull off on the overpass, but the location was right out of a suspense novel. Once I was done, we would throw him off onto the tracks and the next train into Detroit would get rid of what was left. I would be able to move on and he would be a three-course meal for the maggots.

“I don’t know Al,” he said apprehensively. He was backing out. We got this far and he was backing out. Coward. I guess it’s easy to do when you don’t feel the pressure of an unwanted man suffocating your body every time you sleep.

“I’m not going back.”It came out as a whisper even though I swore I was screaming. I knew it was common for others like me to just keep their mouths shut, deal with their demons on their own in the quiet of the night while pretending that nothing was eating them alive during the day. I was not going to be another stupid statistic of a girl too scared to make men like him pay for ruining them whole.

I shook my head.

A wince began to form on his face. He was coming to. Time was running out.

“Leave if you want. I have to do this.”

Isaac stared at me, shocked that I wasn’t so easy to talk off. “Al, please just let’s go. Get in the car, leave him here. He has no idea it was us. We’ll go away. Get away from this stupid city, drive out to Vegas and see the lights. Please just, let’s go away.”

Isaac’s high-pitched voice was like nails on a chalkboard. I couldn’t listen any longer.

“Just go!” I threw back at him. He was trying to give me a way out, but I didn’t want it. All the signs and lights of any world outside this one would be pale and burnt out. I had made up my mind a long time ago and even if Isaac couldn’t bare to end it, I had no other choice.

The train whistle echoed in the distance and the body was breathing heavier, eyes rolling behind his lids.

Isaac stepped closer, slowly, as if he were afraid I would turn the gun on him. The longer it stayed in my hand the heavier it felt. “We can’t do this. We can’t kill someone!”

“You knew what you were getting into, Isaac!” The train light was just visible beyond the bend and if I were going to become a murderer, I would have to do it now. Faint mumbling was emitting from the body’s lips but it was too quiet to make out.

“Please. It will get better, I promise.”

He promised?

The mumbles turned into groans and my spine stiffened. I could feel his groans grunting into my ears as he clamped his hand over my mouth, trying to extinguish my screams.

“Don’t make promises you have no control over,” I said calmly.

I straightened my arms and pushed my index finger against the hard metal, putting a bullet through his head.

Even though Isaac’s screams and the train whistle were deafening, I heard nothing.

He was gone. I used all the strength I had left over, untied his hands from the rail and put all my weight into pushing him off the edge just as the train rounded the bend and ran over his body, crushing what was left of him into the hard, cold steel of the tracks.