Day 5: Sunrise

Ashley’s prediction was correct; she found the couple driving a few miles down the highway at speed limit. They thought they were safe. Ashley snickered. From the rearview mirror, the couple could see that their fate was beginning to be stripped away from their hands again. Ashley was taking more and more control; she was playing God: a ruthless one at that.

A light flickered on Julien and Anna’s dashboard. Their eyes met, Anna’s dripping with tears.

“We can’t pull over,” Julien said.

“We will need to soon,” Anna replied.

“There isn’t even a place for the next few miles.”

“How many miles do we have?”

“We’re below E.”

“What kind of shitty, fucking car’s gas light doesn’t come on until you’re below the E mark?”

“This kind of shitty fucking car.”

They drove on, praying for an open and lit gas station to appear on the sides of the highway. Nothing was to be found. On either side there was overgrown grass, dead bushes, dirt, and darkness. No other cars, not even semi trucks, had passed them for miles. The sights were bleak, even the ones that were not yet seen. Suddenly, a sputtering noise came from the car. The wheels rolled slower, slower, slower, stopped.

The couple was halted in the middle of the road. They were of no obstruction to any other cars, considering there was but only one other car driving this highway at sunrise on this morning, and that particular one didn’t mind at all. Ashley threw the door of her car open, and menacingly approached the stalled car in front of her.

Julien and Anna bolted from their doors; desperately trying to escape what they thought was going to be the wrath of Ashley’s ax.

They ran down the road, and soon ventured into the dirt and brush on the side of the highway. There were no real hiding places; all they could do was run and pray they stumbled across something great. Eventually all they found was taller grass and bushes, which were just barely able to conceal both of their bodies.

During their run through the emptiness, Ashley had been close behind. Once they’d found their way into the larger shrubbery, they had been harder to trace. However she knew they were not far. In the center of the tall grass, she stood motionless, listening for any movement or breathing. A lizard crawled out from some dead leaves, and she fired off a shot in its direction.

“She has a gun!” Julien exclaimed in a whisper to Anna.

She replied with tears. The couple held each other close, silently sobbing in the dirt. They kissed a number of times and mouthed out the words “I love you” and “I love you too.” Ashley, as stealthily as possible, continued to explore the field. From behind her, she heard the shrill of a woman’s sob.

A second bullet was fired from her stolen gun. This one reached its target. Ashley heard a scream and a body slump into the bush that the scream came from. Anna’s dead. Ashley nearly flew to the bush that the bullet pierced. Upon her our-of-breath arrival she hovered over Anna with a gun, which, to her surprise, was still alive.

Julien lie bleeding in Anna’s lap, groaning with pain. Anna talked him lovingly in Ashley’s presence, unaware that the gun was raised at point blank distance from her skull.

“We’ll get you help baby. Help will come. I love you. It’s going to be okay. Seattle is not much farther away.” Julien groaned after a few of Anna’s consoling statements. His eyes began to roll back into his head as he clenched at the hole in his rib cage that was pouring blood.

In disbelief that Ashley had shot the man, the lover, she had sought after all this time, she had not yet fired any rounds into Anna’s brain. She stared blankly at the dying man, whom she’d longed for since their first meeting.

“Be strong baby. We’ll make it out of this. Nothing ever breaks us.” Ashley proceeded in consoling her beloved, but quickly realized that her hopeful phrases were unrealistic. So she began to ease Julien to his death. “The pain will be over soon. This nightmare is going to end, and you’re gonna wake up from this with no pain, no suffering, and all the care and love you can imagine.” Anna didn’t know where Julien was going to wake up in his afterlife, or even if you do, but it felt like the right thing to say, so she repeated the gentle phrases again and again. Julien raised his head, his chest heaving and began to speak broken words and syllables.

“I-I-I......I’ll ne-ne…have you…a-gain. I…can’t leave…you. I-I love…you.”

Tears fell from Anna’s eyes onto Julien’s face. “I’ll always love you. You will have me again.” She kissed him to his death.

Ashley still lingered over Anna’s head. Anna never looked up. She screamed and sobbed loud enough to make all of the animals in the fields scatter.

Hesitant and shaking, Ashley cocked the gun. Anna jumped at the sound, but remained huddled over Julien, clenching his lifeless body. “I’ll be with you sooner than you think,” she whispered into his dead ear.

A shot was fired. A body fell dead. Ashley’s head was pierced with a single bullet.

“NO!” Anna shrieked with outrage.

She stumbled to Ashley’s still corpse. “You were supposed to kill me. You were supposed to kill me goddammit! No. NO!” Anna crawled back to her dead love, and cried harder than she knew she could, until she ran out of tears to cry.