Free The Mamacita Murders by Debra Mares

bodies. It’s an endless cycle.
    “Laura won’t be coming back to the trailer park for a while. Something terrible happened to her,” Angela tells the girls inside the Airstream.
    I’m glad Angela is able to speak about this, because I couldn’t deliver the news without getting choked up. Angela is used to grief and talking about these things with her victims. She has cried countless hours and wiped tears for everyone she helps. She’s used to this. I’m not. I still can’t go a second talking about my mom without getting choked up over that one night I couldn’t save her. So I just don’t talk about it.
    I learned from Angela through angel readings that there’s a difference between dealing with losing someone close to you and just coping with the pain. I’ve done the latter through my whole life. But I’m determined to start coping. It’s hard for me to get close to anyone and trust them. I don’t want to lose anyone again.
    Some of the girls begin to cry as Angela tells them about Laura. All of a sudden, I hear what sounds like the backfire of a tailpipe. Then I hear tires spinning through what sounds like water. It startles all of us.
    A couple of the girls and I run to the side exit door of the motorhome that leads to the RV park. I grab two of the girls by the shirt and tell them to stay inside. Then I reach into my thigh holster through the side slit on my long red mob wife dress, free my Lady Smith .38 Special, and open the door to rush outside.
    Outside the Airstream, I crouch behind a car, looking up to a cat splattered against the dirt path of the RV park. Its gray fur is almost flush with the dirt as its backbone convulses in slow motion curling up, then falling flat. Another convulsion makes the cat look like a worm. Its lower back convulses up, then the middle of its spine bubbles up and its neck snaps forward. It falls flat again. I watch the convulsions, one-after-another, slow and reflexive from the energy in its body leaving its skin. On the fifth convulsion, my vision begins to blur.
    Instead of brown dirt, I see the brown and beige linoleum floor in the kitchen of the mobile home I grew up in. When I was ten, I watched my cat Penny have convulsions. My stepfather, upset over my mom pouring out his beer, ripped Penny out of her hands, then kicked Penny in the stomach.
    I ran into the kitchen and kneeled over Penny. “Please don’t die, Penny, please don’t die.” Penny started convulsing, one after another with her fur puffed out like she had just been electrocuted. To peel me from the floor and get Penny to the hospital, my mom kneeled behind me and held onto me tight. She told me told me that it was okay, all cats had nine lives, and Penny would make it. I couldn’t stop crying. My mom held me tight until Penny’s last convulsion.
    I look beyond the gray cat further up the dirt path of the RV Park to the exit leading to the city road. The driver in a black car points a gun into the air and begins shooting. “Pow, pow, pow.” I see Christina outside with Riley.
    Dust from the ground fills the air like an explosion.
    “Get down!” I yell.
    We all drop to the ground. Someone is slouched down in the driver seat. The roaring of a car engine echoes through the RV Park.
    Riley yells, “Where’s Christina?”
    Christina stands up and starts running in the same direction towards the car. One last shot from the driver side of the car rings out, deafening me. I see a black pistol and sparkles of dust.
    I scream, “Get down!”
    The car screeches off and I see Christina’s bright yellow shirt down on the ground in between two cars parked in the RV park. My heart pounds against my breastbone. Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
    “Christina, Christina, are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay,” I yell, running as fast as I can.
    The distance to get to Christina feels like an eternity. The idea of having to tell Christina’s