Page 43 of After Effect

“There must be some mistake. I’m here for a package.” My words were more to convince myself that this wasn’t happening, than they were genuinely believing there was any sort of mistake.

“Right.” He looked up, thoughtfully considering my words. “If you prefer, I could put him in a series of boxes. But I thought this would be a little easier.”

Sweet jesus. I shook my head wildly. “No no, this is fine.”

“Great. That’s what I thought. Shall we, then?”

He untied his captive from the chair, though he was so heavily wrapped in duct tape, he still couldn’t move, then he hoisted him up over his shoulder. The man in his arms kicked and squirmed and struggled as I followed them from the room and back to my car.

This… This definitely isn’t happening. I kept my head down as I repeated the mantra in my mind, and I focused on the floor directly in front of me. But still, I followed along without argument.

“Can you open the trunk for me, Corbin?” The man shot me another expression of eerie happiness and calm.

“You could just put him in the back seat or something.” I swallowed. Why did I say that?

“I promise you’d rather have him in the trunk for this one.” The man gave my tail light a pat.

“Oh okay.” My voice was void of emotion. I pressed the button on my remote, and the trunk popped open.

“Can you lay down the tarp for me?” This suburban dad nodded toward his porch. A tarp was neatly folded on his patio chair. Something that didn’t seem terribly menacing until this moment. Yet again, I obeyed. Why, I couldn’t say. It felt too late to object, I guess. I spread out the tarp in my trunk, and he plunked the man on top with little mind. “Perfect, I didn’t want to make a mess of your beautiful car.”

Another friendly pat on the shoulder. I just watched as the human being in my trunk squirmed and kicked and tried to scream. What the fuck is happening?!

Mr. Rogers the Second leaned into my trunk, close enough to whisper in the hostage’s ear. In the silent night, I could hear every word with crystal clarity. “You knew better.”

Then in one swift motion, faster than my brain could register, a knife twirled in the man’s well groomed fingers, then penetrated the captive’s stomach.

I’ll always remember the sound of that muffled scream mixed with the slick blade sliding from his flesh. A deep red stain chased its way through the captive’s cotton shirt, inching its way to the tarp that protected my BMW.

I stood wordlessly as he turned to me still with that look of cordial cheer. “Drive fast now, will you?”

With that, he slammed shut the trunk and headed back inside his upscale suburban townhouse.

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“Fuck!” I hit the dash of my Mercedes with a balled fist. My tires screeched over blacktop as I threw myself around each corner. Faster and faster. Just skirting the guard rails. My tail lights illuminated the overgrown shrubs that lined the cliffs. What in the actual fuck is going on? Is this the kind of shit I’ve been transporting all along?

Shift. Brake. Turn. No matter how hard I tried to focused on the task at hand, I couldn’t erase the mental image of a man bleeding out in my trunk. That letter, that brief case, that fucking ICE CHEST. I knew it. I knew there was something sketchy about it all. But I never thought it would go this far. I slammed the gas pedal to the floor through a long sweeping turn, then pulled the e-brake to drift into a hairpin.

“Control the slide. Smooth is fast, Sebastian.” My dad’s voice played in my head, a vivd memory from all those years ago. All those days at the kart track, practicing and crashing, winning and making one too many mistakes. He thought I’d be in Formula 1. I just liked the feel of my tires gripping through the ring-ding-dinging of my two stroke gasser.

My dad. The late and great Bartholomew Karas.

Are these the same kind of people he was in bed with? Is this why we had to run that night? Why they chased him off that cliff? Is this why both of my parents are dead now and I had to take someone else’s name? And why did they always pause when they heard Corbin. What did Mark have to do with all of this? I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. And I thanked that fine-tuned muscle memory that was keeping me alive through every perilous turn of the Santa Monica mountains.

The road tilted me downward toward sea level. The ocean drew a black line across the horizon, visible only because of the feint moonlight. A sharp left would take me onto PCH, and then it would be smooth sailing. There shouldn’t be too many cops at this hour. But I’ll slow down. The last thing I could afford to do was get pulled over with a fucking body in my trunk.

The street lights reflected over the gloss black of my hood, sliding over the paint in streaks of white. So then who is Baek? Is this how ALIVE has kept funding all these years? Or maybe the better question is who is the man in my trunk, and what exactly did HE do to be here?

I… I could ask him. No- what if he bleeds out because I’m taking too much time. Well… I guess I’m assuming whoever I’m delivering him too cares if he’s alive.

I shook my head to dismiss the thought. I’m being ridiculous. If he dies in the trunk, it’s my fault. I won’t have that on my hands.

You had better fucking kill that performance tomorrow, Lilly.

I arrived at the coordinates with ten minutes to spare. It was a small beachside home, standing over the ocean on a rocky ledge, with a tight two car garage that faced the road. The garage door opened almost as soon as I arrived, and I backed in with one swift motion, parking next to another black Mercedes that was nearly identical to mine.

I popped the trunk the second the door had fully shut us off from the outside world. A man in all black greeted me. Dark hair, green eyes, a surfer’s build, tan complexion, maybe a little older than I was. He smiled at the fortunately still breathing and still bleeding man in my trunk.

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