Free Sociopaths In Love by Andersen Prunty Page B

look back at the place
they had just left. She didn't know if she was afraid those things
would still be there or if she was afraid of realizing they'd never
been there.
    Eventually, they came to a town called
Marshall and one of the highway signs had ample places for lodging.
Walt got off the exit, pulled through a Wendy's, ordered an
abundance of food, drove directly to the second window to retrieve
their food, and then drove away. He pulled into the parking lot of
a Ramada and they ate in the car. They walked into the lobby. The
night clerk didn't even glance up at them. They took the elevator
to the top floor. Walt said all these places had a presidential
suite or equivalent and no one ever stayed there, especially on a
weeknight. He pulled his gun from his pants, shot the lock, and
they walked in, shutting the door and using the deadbolt to hold it
closed. Erica took a long shower, a real shower with soap and
shampoo and hot water and everything, and wrapped a towel around
herself because she didn't want to put her dirty clothes back on.
Walt hopped in after her. She lay on the bed and turned the
television on. She kept pressing the button, hovering no longer
than a couple of seconds on any one channel, digesting nothing, not
wanting to digest anything. Some new torture video must have gone
viral and most of the channels consisted of clips from this. People
in military garb beheaded, spinal columns poking out of red necks,
severed heads that looked more Halloween prop than human. Well,
that was something to digest anyway. Otherwise the television might
as well have been filled with mannequins speaking a foreign
language. Before Walt came out of the bathroom, she decided the
light the TV emitted made her angry so she turned it off and waited
in the darkened quiet.
    Walt came out of the bathroom naked. Erica
threw her towel off. They went to sleep a couple of hours
later.

 
    Presents
     
    Erica woke up before noon the next day. Walt
wasn't in the room. She decided to take another shower and think
about the dream she'd had while it was still fresh in her head. She
didn't remember many of her dreams.
    Walt drove a luxurious car. She wasn't sure
what kind of car it was, but it had plush leather seats and an
almost science fictional array of bright electronics embedded in
the gleaming wood of the dash. She felt happy but had the distinct
feeling some other emotion was on the backburner of her brain.
Something like fear or anger or anxiety. It seemed like it was in
the future, she wasn't sure how near or far because it felt like
she had been with Walt for a long time. He drove really fast and
she kept telling him to slow down. Maybe that was the cause of the
anxiety. But he kept going faster and faster. It was bright and
sunny outside and the windows were down and, with the exception of
the speed they were going, it was a nice ride. Despite her
protestations, even the speed seemed excessive and exhilarating.
They were in the mountains somewhere. It could have been back in
Missouri or somewhere else. Hell, she didn't know what anywhere
else looked like. Suddenly the road ended and they were headed for
the sheared gray of a mountain. She'd seen these all over in the
hills, some construction crew just blasting and sawing their way
through a mountain to put down a road. Rigid with terror, Erica
braced for the impact but there wasn't one. They passed through the
rock wall of the mountain until they were in a dark room. She knew
the room was dark but it seemed lit with some internal light. Like
there weren't any windows or anything and the walls and ceiling
were black. Maybe this was what it was like to be able to see in
the dark. It finally dawned on her that she was in a cave. The
thought of caves normally made her feel claustrophobic and squirmy.
But all she felt at the exact moment was an almost fluffy sense of
comfort. Walt was no longer next to her. Noticing them for the
first time, she saw that hundreds of beds filled the