Ken Douglas - Death Glitch

Lila Booth saw the McDonald’s on the right as she came into Susanville. She pulled into the parking lot, went in to use the restroom and splash water on her face. According to her laptop, Izzy Eisenhower was in Medford, had been for the last forty-five minutes or so. It was about three hours to the Oregon border, another twenty minutes to Medford. If the woman stayed put, Lila could catch up to her around noon, provided she got right back on the road.

But she had something to do first.

She hadn’t seen her mother in a dozen years. Not since her stepfather had raped her. She’d left town that night, hitchhiked to Reno, where she found living on the streets was hard. After two weeks of sleeping in San Rafael Park at night and begging spare change during the day, she met Mansfield Wayne, a truly evil man, but he’d been good to her.

He’d found her begging outside of the Sands Casino. He wouldn’t give her any money, but he’d offered to take her to the truck stop next door and buy her lunch. And during that lunch she’d sensed something about Mansfield Wayne, sensed his true nature. But despite that, she sensed that he’d never hurt her. He was evil yes, but he had class.

And he was patient. He had a way about him, something that made you want to confide. Usually to your detriment, but it wasn’t so with Lila. She’d been young and easy for him to probe. She’d told him everything.

The next day he drove to Susanville and put a bullet into her stepfather’s brain, earning Lila’s undying loyalty. Fortunately for her mother, she’d been shopping at the Grocery Outlet or he’d’ve killed her, too.

He’d raised her as if she were his daughter. Tucker was older and already out of the house, going to school back east. Yale. So it was just the two of them in that big rambling house up on that mountain.

Theirs had been a stormy relationship, but they’d been close. He’d turned her into a killer, but she’d never regretted it, never looked back, never spoke to her mother again, had never been back to Susanville again. But now she was driving through and she couldn’t pass by without seeing her.

A dozen years, a long time. But even though she hadn’t had any contact with her, she’d kept track. She knew her mother had gotten married again, to a man named Martin Stover. Lila hoped number three was better than number two. She hoped her mother was happy. Everybody deserved to be happy.

Back in the Jag, she mentally chided herself for not putting the top up and locking the car. A stupid oversight. She was really off her game, she thought as she checked behind the passenger seat. The bag and laptop were still there.

“ Come on, Lila, keep it together,” she mumbled.

She started the car. In a couple minutes she’d be face to face with Mr. and Mrs. Martin Stover. She hoped her mother would be glad to see her.

Edith Stover held the rolled dollar with a shaking hand as she snorted the white powder. When she’d met Martin they’d used hundreds and were snorting coke. Now they were using singles and snorting meth. She preferred chasing the white dragon, but Martin got into one of his crazy fits last night and broke the pipe and Edith hated slamming. She was afraid of needles, afraid of AIDs, so snorting was the way to go.

Martin slammed first, then snorted right after his initial rush.

She sighed as the high flowed through her. There was nothing like it. Better than coke. She bent down to the coffee table, did the other line as the girl started screaming from the other room. Martin and his hookers. She’d been a bit put out at first, but he kept her in meth, so as far as Edith was concerned, he could fuck every teeny bopping whore from here to Reno if he wanted. What did she care? She got hers plenty.

Besides, she liked watching. She got up to check on the action, but was interrupted by the doorbell.

Who the fuck?

She went to the door, opened it.

“ Hey, Mom.” It was Lila, dressed like a refugee from a cowboy movie. All she needed was the hat.

“ What’s with the coat?”

“ After all this time and you still trash talk about the way I dress.”

“ What do you want?”

“ Nothing.”

“ You took Gary’s love away, then got him killed.”

“ He raped me.” Always the same with Lila.

“ Nothing’s changed,” Edith said. “It’s always been about you. I guess it still is.” She was about to tell her to get on back to wherever she’d come from, when the girl screamed again.

The scream ripped through Lila. All of a sudden she was thirteen again and Gary Rose was raping her. Horror seized her. It was happening all over. She pulled the Glock from the shoulder holster, pushed her mother aside, stepped inside the house, started for the bedroom.

“ No!” her mother grabbed her gun arm with a crab like grip, spun her around. “He’s mine!”

“ Get away.” Revulsion poured over Lila like black paint. She latched onto her mother’s fingers, pulled them back, heard one break, but the older woman’s grip was strong as death. She held on. “You go away!”

“ Stop it.” Lila bent her fingers back farther, heard another break. Her mother was crazy strong, crazy period. Without letting go of her mother’s hand, Lila spun to the right, elbowed her face, stepped away as her mother fell to the dirty carpet, but still the woman held on, dragging Lila to the floor with her.

“ He’s mine,” she hissed, deadly as any snake.

Lila grabbed back onto her mother’s gripping hand and this time she let out a scream when Lila squeezed and bent the fingers back. Finally her mother let go and Lila rolled away, jumped to her feet, charged toward the bedroom, where she found a monster of a man raping a wisp of girl.

“ Get off!” Lila sounded like a banshee to herself as her scream tore through the room. The man stopped fucking the child, pushed himself off, turned to face Lila and she shot him through the heart and like a lightning flash, her memory came flooding back. Her mother had been watching when Gary Rose had raped her.

She had been a part of it.

“ Noooo!” her mother came shrieking into the bedroom.

Lila shot her three times in the chest, watched her body dance backward, smash into the doorjamb, collapse dead on the floor.

“ Fuckin’ hell,” the girl on the bed shouted.

“ You’re alright now,” Lila said. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“ He wasn’t hurting me.”

“ What?” Lila’s ears were still ringing with the sound of gunfire and she wasn’t sure she was understanding what the girl was saying.

“ He was paying me.”

Izzy went from the Goodwill thrift shop to the Grocery Outlet supermarket next door. She needed a plan and she needed some time to herself to make one, some thinking time and she wasn’t going to get it on the run. She needed to hunker down. More than that, she needed to wind down and the best way to do that would be with a bottle of Cabernet.

It had been years since she’d sworn off drinking. The affair with the slimy surgeon had driven her to a couple bottles of expensive wine a night, sometimes more. She’d been afraid of becoming an alcoholic, afraid of ruining her career, so she’d quit, hadn’t touched a drop in more years than she cared to remember.

Tomorrow she’d deal with her problems, but tonight she was going to relax with a couple glasses of Cab, get a good night’s sleep and in the morning, she’d deal.

At the wine section, she picked up a bottle that looked promising, then she wandered the isles, picked up several cans of corned beef hash, got a can opener and started for the checkout. Cab for her, hash for Hunter.

Back in the car, she started for the Springfield Suites she’d seen as she’d gotten off the freeway. She pulled into the covered area for new guests, opened the door, started to get out when Hunter woofed.