Never.
Definitely worth consideration.
Funny thing about the urge. Unlike a big meal, or even sex, where it would sustain you for a while, a good long murder session was more akin to a drug. Even though you’d just had some, you still wanted more. A better buzz. A longer high. For the party to go on and on and on.
The sun glinted off the chrome and glass of the approaching car, which was still a half mile out.
He checked his face in the mirror—still a few scratches from the previous night’s guest, but nothing too—
Shit.
He glanced down.
He’d forgotten to change, and the front of his tee-shirt was caked with day-old blood. It reeked, too, and not body odor reek.
Dead guy reek.
The sweet, rotting aroma of blood exposed to a hundred five degree heat.
He’d already driven three miles out from the cabin, but he wondered if he should go back, change into fresh clothes. Last thing he needed was to throw a red flag by smelling like decomp.
But chances were, the delivery driver had already seen him, or at least his dust trail.
Might follow him back to the cabin, and that would be a true disaster.
Fuck it.
He pulled his tee-shirt over his head and tossed it in the backseat.
He still stunk, but now it was just good old fashioned BO.
No crime in that.
When Donaldson saw the car approaching, he let his foot slide off the gas and brought his sedan to a stop. He sat for a moment, thinking.
If it’s a woman, maybe I’ll take her.
But the truth was, he wouldn’t really even have to take her anywhere. Could do her right here, out in the great wide open, under them skies of blue, just like the new Tom Petty song said. No one would hear her screams except him and the cacti.
Donaldson thought about the toolbox he had in the trunk. And the Polaroid. Supposedly the final rays of sunshine were considered the magic hour for photographers.
Donaldson had never seen how blood photographed in the twilight.
Okay, a woman, and she’s mine.
Or a man. If he’s okay-looking.
Donaldson fidgeted in his seat, watching the car approach.
Fuck it. As long as it’s human and has a pulse, I’ll take my shot.
He turned off the engine and climbed out into the blistering desert heat, patting the folding knife in his back pants pocket.
A crusty-brown Buick sped down the dirt road toward him, rocking along on its shocks.
The Buick drew closer and closer, and for a moment, Donaldson thought it wasn’t going to stop, but then he heard the sound of its tires locking up.
The car skidded to a halt, ten feet from the front bumper of his sedan.
Its engine died and a cloud of dust and dirt swept over him.
Donaldson coughed, his eyes burning, and for a moment, he couldn’t see a thing.
A car door squeaked open and slammed.
Footsteps crunched in the dirt.
The first thing Donaldson saw was a pair of snakeskin boots, coated in dust, and then a pair of well-worn Wrangler jeans.
The customer was a bare-chested, bronze-skinned man.
Late-twenties.
Muscular and slim.
A well-proportioned face with a mop of short brown hair and bangs that hung in his eyes.
Tasty, Donaldson thought.
But at the same time, an element of this man was off.
There was something—familiar—in those piercing blue eyes. The way they flicked this way and that, focusing on Donaldson, behind him, the car, the road, back to him, taking in his whole body, head to foot. Donaldson felt like he, and everything around him, was under intense scrutiny. He recognized this, because he was doing the same thing. No one in the man’s car, no one on the road behind him, no apparent weapon bulge in his jeans, just a thumb tucked into his belt near his rear pocket.
Which is how Donaldson had his hand, because it was near his knife.
The man smiled. “Find the place all right?”
“You Miller?” Donaldson asked.
“That’s what the bill says, right?”
Donaldson wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he’d bet anything that this man’s name wasn’t Miller.
Donaldson spread his feet slightly, letting his soles dig into the dirt. A defensive stance.
“So, I believe everything’s been paid for?” the man said.
“Ain’t too often I get a delivery out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, this is the middle of nowhere. Beautiful, don’t you think?”
Miller, or whatever his name was, had the setting sun behind him. Another thing that gnawed at Donaldson, because it was an old combat trick.
“Your package is in the back seat, if you’d like to come on over and grab it.”
Miller said, “You drove this package all the way down from Montana. Now I paid good money for this delivery. So why don’t you get it out of the backseat and bring it to me?”
He kicked the ground with his black snakeskin boots, sent a twirling, mini-tornado of dust Donaldson’s way.
Donaldson smiled. “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”
Keeping one eye on Miller, he opened the door to his back seat and snatched up the cardboard box.
“I gotta say, driving with this package for so long, I’ve been dying to know what’s in it.”
“Dying, huh?”
Donaldson bumped the door shut with his hip, reaching around and grasping the knife in his back pocket.
“Any chance you’ll tell me what it is?” Donaldson asked.
“Maybe I’ll show you.”
Donaldson walked sideways, out of the sun’s glare. “Yeah. Maybe you will.”
Five paces away, Donaldson stopped.
Letting the knife fall from his palm into his hand, he thumbed the blade open.
Miller began to laugh. Which wasn’t the response Donaldson had been anticipating.
Two seconds later, he caught the joke.
Miller held a knife, too. Folder, with a serrated blade.
Hell, it looked like the same damn model as Donaldson’s.
“So, what are you planning on doing with that knife, fat man?” Miller asked.
“I was going to cut off little bits of your face and feed them to you. You?”
“Slice your medial collateral ligaments….you know the ones behind your knees? Then take you back to my place. I’ve got a shed filled with all sorts of goodies.”
“Nice. Stop me from running?”
“Stop you from doing any f**king moving at all. What’s your name?”
“Donaldson. What’s your real name?”
The man hesitated, just for a beat, and then said, “Orson.”
“I see you got some splashes of blood on your jeans, Orson. You reek of it, too. Was that one of your ligament specials?”