Is it normal for people to think aloud? To converse with their streamed entertainment? Maybe not, but as someone who’s spent the majority of the last eight years alone, it’s become my normal.
Like my demand conjured the words from her lips into the microphone, through the cloud and out my Sprinter van’s speakers, Jynx’s sultry tone picks up again. “And as Jayce’s eyes widen in realization, McNair’s stare fills with determination. This cop isnotgoing to be what stops the spree he’s been planning for so long. McNairlunges. Jaycedodges.”
Every word instills something in me.
Panic.
Hope.
Terror.
The need forjustice.
The woman is a master. She should be an audiobook narrator.
Real talk: I’ll listen to just about any true crime show, but no one does it like Jynx. She’s got me shouting along like this is the Kentucky Derby.
“Screw your partner, get him for the dog’s honor, Jayce! Tase him, tackle him, drop kick him in theballs, baby, let’s go!”
“And as McNair pulls back his arm, the same knife that took so many other lives—including Jayce’s partner’s just an hour earlier—held high over his head, poised to take the final swipe and end yet another life on his mission from the devil himself, something glints on the blade. The sliver of metal that wasn’t covered in his partner’s blood lit up, reflected something star-bright, temporarily blinding both men.”
A fresh round of chills breaks out across my arms, and I take another swig of my drink. This is the fucking life, I tell ya. The open road. Just me and Van Gogh. And Jynx for company.
The stunning scenery grabs my attention for just a flicker of a moment as I round a bend, and I soak it in. This view’s not half bad. The bright green of the endless rolling forests that blanket the mountainsides. Peaks and valleys as far as the eye can see, in the final amethyst and rose hues of twilight. It’s as gorgeous of an area as any to stay for a day or few.
I’m still a good fifty miles from the campsite I was planning on staying at for the night, but I’ve got at least a few more episodes downloaded. That should be more than enough to get me through these winding mountain roads after dusk.
“Jayce sprang forward, blindly attacking, knowing this was his one and only chance to break out of the psycho’s hold and get free, but McNair wasn’t having it. He pushes Jayce backward, hitting him with the butt of the knife as he does, and the officer gets knocked—” Jynx claps to emphasize the word, “—out.” She claps again.
The thrill in her voice is contagious.
“It’s game over for the second officer who tried to bring an end to the madman’s spree. But then, the unthinkable happens. That glint on the blade? The reason for it comes barreling right at them. On this deserted highway, late at night, when no one else is around, comes a set ofheadlights.”
The disbelief palpable in her words has me screaming. “No fucking way!”
“It wasn’t the backup Jayce had called for. Of course it wasn’t. The nearest other officers were stillmilesaway. It was a regular old civilian. Agrandma. McNair staggers back, tries to cover his eyes from the blinding light, but all the woman driving can see is a raving madman, holding a massive blade covered in blood, and an officer on the ground, unconscious.”
“Channel Lightning McQueen. Gun it. Come on, lady, for the dog!”
“Of course she’s heard of the Bladed Butcher, the whole I-70 corridor was on DEFCON levels of alertness for this mass murdering psychopath. So can you guess what happened next, Vixens?”
As I often try to, I channel someone much bigger than five foot nothing with my roar of, “GET HIM!”
“Officer Jayce stirred, regaining consciousness just as the Buick veered toward them. He rolled over, taking cover beneath the trunk of the killer’s car, where the blood of his last victim stilldrip, drip, drippedonto the pavement below. And there, unknowingly beneath the body of his slain partner, Jayce watched as an eighty-four-year-old grandmother of nineteen sideswiped the most notorious serial killer of the decade, not just neutralizing the immediate threat, but putting him into a coma that lasted forty-seven hours.”
The cheer that leaves the deepest part of my chest should be reserved for football games your own children are playing in. Professional ones. That come with gargantuan rings for winning. But that holler wasn’t enough for me.
“That’s right, you little punk ass bitch!”
“Believe it or not, when interviewed by law enforcement later, little old Mrs. Dixon confessed she’d gotten lost and shouldn’t even have been on that road that night. Was it a wrong turn? Or did fate intervene in the name of vengeance?”
She gives a poignant pause before continuing.
“And two years later, when McNair was tried for no less than twenty-three capital felonies, old Mrs. Dixon was one of the key witnesses they called to the stand. She passed away just three days after his guilty verdict came through, but she made it long enough to see through her mission to bring him to justice.Vengeance for his eleven human victims, and vengeance for Larry the dog.”
For a moment, my thoughts get carried away without my permission. I imagine the rescue personnel that had to transport the killer that night. The medical team that had to care for him, keep him alive, despite their knowledge of who he was, what he’d done, the disdain they had for his actions and, more than likely, the rot that ran down to his very soul.
I wonder how the families and many loved ones of the victims felt, watching this killer be kept alive, at great expense to taxpayers like themselves, when their loved ones were no longer around to be offered that chance.
