Page 86 of Soulless Saint

“Almost there,” Kaleb replied. “We just have one stop to make and then–”

“No stops,” the other voice shouted. “Get here now. I don’t want the others to see this shit. We need to clean it up before they come looking.”

“What?”

“I’m sending you the coordinates. Don’t stop for anything, that’s a fucking order.”

“I thought you were at the house?”

“Not anymore.”

The line went dead, and the soft sound of radio music filtered back through the cabin.

“What the fuck? What does he mean, clean what up?”

I could feel the tension in the car, the discomfort of it making me squirm, making my stomach turn, but despite the lingering feeling of dread, I could already feel myself slipping away again. My soul leaving my body to go someplace softer for a while. A place where there were no worries and I could drift on a cloud into oblivion.

“She’s out,” a familiar voice rumbled distantly as my body sagged back down into the seat.

“We can’t take her with us.”

“We can’t leave her, either.”

The next time I woke, my head felt heavy, like it’d been filled with bricks, and I couldn’t lift it from where it lay. I blinked away the gluey substance in my eyes, and I squinted into a light that was too bright, recoiling with eyes squeezed shut.

Except… what was that?

I opened them again, slower this time, the bright light making searing pain arc over my skull, but still I tried to force myself to see.

My palms pushed uselessly on the soft fabric beneath me, trying to push myself up only to lie more heavily once I was spent.

My sluggish mind tried to comprehend the distorted image through the windshield, partially blocked by the seats in front of me. High above the ground, bright white lights were tilted against a flat surface.

…a… a billboard, my tired mind supplied.

And there, in the center of the rectangle of purest white was something red.

My chin quivered as I started to make out shapes. An arm. A leg. A torso. All parts of a whole that no longer was whole. Dismembered pieces of a man were pinned to the white surface like an entomologist might pin insects to a peg board. The limbs were bent at odd angles. Lined up toes over fingers. Thigh over torso.

I squeezed my eyes shut, a rolling wave of nausea threatening to bring up acid from my stomach, until I remembered.

The chalky taste of the pill on my tongue, the difficulty of swallowing it dry. Molly.

I was on Molly.

Chill, Becks. You’re just trippin’.

I wasn’t sure how long I held my eyes shut, praying that what I thought I saw tacked onto the billboard wasn’t really there.

But when I opened my eyes again, my body heaved with a sigh, finding a smooth white billboard with an artistic red smear over the middle that looked almost like a maple leaf. No body parts. No carnage. Just white and red.

Like a Canadian flag.

Peaceful.

My lips twitched into something close to a smile as I allowed my eyes to close again, praying that I would be sober again the next time I opened my eyes.

A door opened. Something rocked the car. A door closed.

---