The Hiking Writer

At first, he didn’t know where he was. After a moment, it dawned on him. He was in his car; he must’ve fallen asleep. The vodka was still heavy in his bloodstream, his head felt like it had a brick strapped to it; off balance and listing.

Where was that damn sound coming from? It sounded like an angry wasp was in the Firebird with him. The thought of a wasp panicked him and he came fully awake. Looking around through the slightly fogged windows, he noticed a shadow just behind his left shoulder outside the driver side door. He flinched reflexively as the shadow moved slowly toward the front of the car, the buzzing sound getting louder.

As the shadow outside his car drew even with him, he recognized a human shape. Suddenly the buzzing stopped. The shadow outside his car stood up straight and Dave looked straight into the face of someone he recognized.

His blood alcohol made the realization come to him slowly.

It was the bartender chick!

As Dave gaped, the woman outside his driver side door slowly held up a key in her left hand. With her right hand, she held up an extended middle finger.

"Hi Dave. I just keyed the shit out of your car, dumb ass." Suzy said quietly with a smile.

Dave’s shock slowly evolved into fury. His face seemed to fall like a Californian mudslide, the raised eyebrows sliding down into a "V", his open mouth widening into a gritted frown.

"You BITCH!" he yelled, feeling the warm glow of the vodka in his bloodstream catch fire and explode.

Dave scrambled for the handle and flung the car door open, breathing heavily with the effort and the adrenal rush.

Suzy stepped back out of way of the swinging door and giggled slightly when it rebounded from its maximum extension back into Dave’s legs. Kicking back at the door with a grunt, Dave struggled to free himself from the driver’s seat.

"You really are a stupid drunk fuck Dave", Suzy drawled, egging Dave on.

Finally on his feet, Dave felt an anger he’d never felt before and growled through his clenched teeth. Looking at the black clad woman standing nonchalantly in front of him, he started forward thinking he would rush her. No sooner had his right foot taken a step forward and landed on the ground, when Dave saw Suzy move like a blur.

Pain blossomed in his foot as Suzy’s heel landed squarely on his instep. With a gasping intake of breath from the pain, Dave reflexively reached for his foot, almost doubling over with the agony. The angry fire in his belly squelched immediately to just a flickering pilot light.

Dave started to speak but only got out "I’m guhhh" before Suzy pivoted at the waist and drove her left knee squarely into Dave’s jaw, a sickening crack exploding inside of his head. A single tooth, almost in slow motion, made a looping arc out of Dave’s mouth and landed in the Firebird driver’s seat, a pink rime around the root’s gum line, tipped in crimson.

Dave fell backward from the momentum of the knee, his upper shoulders making contact with the door rim, his head falling back in a whiplash to strike the edge of the bucket seat. He crumpled forward with the back of his head bloodied, unconscious in an almost fetal position.

"Pathetic" Suzy muttered looking down at her handiwork.

When she left the bar 10 minutes earlier, she’d had no thought about Dave. She’d felt a little heat in their confrontation when she stopped serving him, but she hadn’t expected him to hang around. After spotting the suspiciously parked car, she had quietly gotten into her Mustang, pulled out and cruised down Redding Drive at an idle, using only her parking lights to navigate. As she passed the dark Firebird, she saw Dave in the driver’s seat; his head lay back on the headrest at an uncomfortable angle. She even imagined she could hear him snore.

Smiling, she had quickly turned on her headlights and pulled into the adjoining neighborhood. Taking a right, she parked in front a dark house only a three doors down from Redding. She killed her lights, turned off the motor and waited five minutes before getting out of her car.

Quietly latching her door, she walked back to Redding. Following the fence line on her left, she had crept to the back bumper of the Firebird. Noticing the glossy shine on the trunk, she’d decided the easiest way to piss Dave off was to key his car. She knew the type, guys hated to have their rides scratched.

True to form, Dave hadn’t disappointed, and now he laid at her feet unconscious. The moment of truth was now. She quickly rifled Dave’s pockets, looking for a wallet. In his right rear pants pocket she found it.

Doing a quick inventory in the dim light of the bars overhead parking lot lights, she found a driver’s license, a debit card, and no pictures.

No pictures. She knew what came next.

"I guess this just wasn’t your night Dave." Suzy said quietly to the lump at her feet. Quietly, Suzy pulled out a pair of gloves from her jacket pocket and pulled them on. She then reached across Dave’s body and leaned into the car to pull the car keys from the ignition. Moving to the rear of the car, she popped the trunk and made certain there was room enough for Dave inside.

Without much sound, she drug Dave to the rear of the car and unceremoniously lifted and tipped him into the trunk. The key was lifting with your legs. Dave was about 200 pounds, but she could dead lift 250 in the gym. And she had gotten used to the particularly ungainly weight of an unconscious body.

Dave wasn’t going to be her first, and she doubted he would be her last, but tonight, Dave was going to a be a rather gruesome victim. Moving his head to face her, Suzy threw an elbow twice into the bridge of Dave’s nose, breaking the bone along with his right cheek. Dave wasn’t going to wake up en route.

She tucked Dave’s stray left foot into the trunk bed, and calmly closed and latched the trunk with only a "click". Climbing into the drivers seat, she felt a small lump under her leg and reached down to find out what it was. Extracting the unknown object, she held it between her thumb and forefinger and examined it in the dim light.

Starting the Firebird and adjusting the driver’s seat, Suzy placed Dave’s tooth in her breast pocket and giggled. She pulled out and slowly passed the bar where she would close again tomorrow night. By tomorrow, there would be one less asshole on the skin of the world.