78...

Alexis walked around to the back of the car and opened up the trunk. A sickly yellow light illuminated the contents of the space, barely fell out to lightly touch the ground surrounding the rear wheels. In the trunk was a change of shoes, a rolled up sleeping bag, a box of goodies for earthquake preparedness and an ancient tire jack.
She pushed everything to the back except the ratty sleeping bag which she pulled out and tossed to the side of the road. She looked around the small area of the trunk once again for anything that might be useful. Nothing about the contents had changed, just the same shit she had seen.
Moving in an unhurried rush, she grabbed the rolled sleeping bag and made her way around the passenger side of the car. She opened the rear passenger door and tossed the bag in the back. She saw the large, drying pool of blood on the floor and pushed away the memory of Louis' last moments. Less than an hour prior, she had been ready to kill the creepy little guy herself, but now knowing he had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she felt a certain sadness for the kid.
She softly closed the door and made her way to the front passenger door. She put her hand on the warm handle and waited. She closed her eyes, dropped her head and took three or four deep breaths.
Alexis was not sorry for Matthew's death, not in the least. Like most other men she had been locked into battle with, he became way too confident of his own power, not near sly enough. What she was upset about was how far this had now come, how far it would have to go. She would spend what was the rest of her life running, looking over her shoulder, always wondering which faceless fuck was on their way to her. She could feel the tension already building in her shoulders.
At the very least, she thought to herself, I now know there's a mark on me.
She slowly lifted the door's handle and let the door fall open under the weight of Matthew. His head lulled out over the seat and into the exterior world. His mouth opened as if breathing in the dusty air, his eye stared out into the chaparral behind her.
Alexis knelt down beside him, put her hands under his arms, took a deep breath and pulled. She managed to drag his body out of the passenger seat up to his waist before the strain was too much. Fucking bodies are always heavier than they should be. She let go and Matthew's head fell to the gravel at the road's shoulder.
Looking quickly east and west down the canyon road, Alexis took another deep breath, grabbed at Matthew’s belt and yanked with everything she had. She managed to get the body out of the car and onto the side of the road. She could feel a burning in her left shoulder, telling her she had pulled a muscle or two.
With a couple of minutes of teeth gritting strain and more sweat than she would have believed she could produce, Alexis got Matthew's body up off the ground and had it leaning against the car. She kicked the passenger door closed with her foot. She was panting, she had one hand pinning his body to the car and was wiping sweat off her face with the other. Matthew began sliding back towards the ground and she latched on with both hands, digging in with her legs to steady him once again.
As sweat stung her eyes, she seemed to notice a change in the light surrounding her. Before she could fathom what it was, she could hear the whine of a car's engine. She looked out to where the canyon let out onto the Pacific Ocean and saw headlights making their way towards her.

77...

Alexis slipped off of Matthew's body, sliding the steel loop from around his neck at the same time. She fastened it around her own neck and it hung dutifully as an innocuous charm bracelet. She adjusted herself in the driver’s seat. She looked out the windshield and realizing that the car was sitting at a slant across the narrow canyon road she reached over and patted around for the keys she had left somewhere near Matthew.
Alexis was looking at herself from somewhere far away. She could almost hear her mind shrieking red, locked away inside the still cage of her body. Her hand, like a piece of machinery, found the keys to the Cadillac and pulled them to her. Eyes locked forward, she put the keys in the ignition and started the car, moving it only far enough to get it off to the side of the road before stopping the engine once again.
She looked over at Matthew slumped over on the passenger side. His face only lightly lit by the diffuse light coming from over the canyon walls and the silvery light of a moon she couldn't see. His one eye stared softly at nothing.
"Now what?" she asked softly.
Matthew, of course, didn't answer. He merely continued to stare silently.
"I'm pretty much fucked now Matthew. The company's after me, and being you're not going to report back in a couple of days, they're gonna send someone else; Vanessa and Lester more than likely. Lester I couldn't care about it, I can take him easy... But Vanessa wants me something awful."
Alexis found her cigarettes, rolled down the window and lit one up. She leaned her elbow out the window and blew an agitated stream of smoke out into the night.
"Nothing I can do. Huh? I mean I can't just call 'em up and call it off."
The rush of adrenaline suddenly dissipated like the smoke out the window and left her fully awake. She felt the sudden, maddening urge wail and cry a torrent. She let a few tears fall before sniffing loudly and taking another drag of her cigarette.
"Okay Matthew, I'm gonna have to get rid of you. It's certainly not gonna go good if I get pulled over and there you are, just staring at Officer Friendly with your one good eye and with one bad ligature mark around your neck."
She sat quietly for a moment, thinking over her options. She stared forward and took regular drags from her smoke.
"There's bad suburb behind, already with Louis, the mystery death, thank you very much. And the bars and restaurants up ahead at the beach are just gonna be getting ready to start jumping..."
She looked around herself, through the windows of the car and out at the dark dirt towers of the canyon.
"It almost seems perfect. To drag you out here and find some quiet place to lay you down in the dark." She looked back over at Matthew's blank face. "But, with my luck, I wind up putting you into the long driveway of a dog kennel or some such shit."
Alexis sighed, tossing her cigarette butt out the window. She sat silently for a moment before once again yanking the keys out of the ignition. She gave Matthew a sly sort of smile.
"It's risky, but... "
She opened the driver's side door and stepped out onto the road.

76...

The wailing spin of the Cadillac was coming to a slow finale. The car went up on two wheels for a moment and then came down with a crash. Quicker than most would have thought possible, Alexis yanked the keys out of the ignition, flung her seatbelt away and was across the bench seat in one fluid motion.
She didn't realize it until she was on top of him, but in the thrashing of the car, Matthew had managed to lodge his own knife a good inch and a half into his side. He was grimacing like some sort of rabid and ravaged animal as he tried to remove it. This did not deter Alexis in the least. She held the curving tail of the metal lizard key ring out of her fingers like a pewter claw and went for his face.
Matthew let out a howl as the blunt end of the thing dug into the flesh of his temple. With his right hand, he pawed at the knife sticking out of him, with his left he attempted to land blows on Alexis' face. He was terrible with his left hand so little fell, but it wouldn't have mattered much anyway. Alexis was well within a pulsing red haze, finally riding that wave of bloody instinct, and it would take more than feeble punches to the face to snap her back.
She pulled strongly on the key chain, dragging it slowly across the upper part of his face. She didn't hear his animal shrieking, the flood of high pitched tongues that erupted from his mouth, but she felt the jerk and burst of warm fluid on her hand as the lizard's tail ruined his left eye.
Matthew pulled at the knife with an uncontrolled flailing and managed to dislodge it. He put one hand over his eye socket and brandished the knife, red with his own blood, with the other. He was screaming, muttering, slavering, but Alexis heard none of it. Everything in her ears was a soft static white noise of a radio temporarily between stations. Alexis calmly slipped her necklace from out of her pocket.
The knife hand began a swing, plunging the blade towards Alexis’ neck. She dodged to the right, but the thing was still going to land straight in her back at the end of that arc. When Matthew’s hand snagged on the seat belt though, the knife left his hand, twirling forwards, the handle bouncing lamely off of Alexis’ shoulder. Before Matthew could voice his disappointed growl, that growl was cut off by a chain wrapping around his neck.
Matthew was shocked by just how quickly the air cut off; one moment there was labored breathing, the next nothing coming in. He began to thrash wildly, but Alexis hung on like a seasoned rodeo rider.
Alexis barely felt movement beneath her, she only watched his bulging eye, his face turning a further shade of scarlet as she tightened the steel loop around his throat. She could see him struggling to say something, but she only slowly shook her head with a cold smile laid delicately on her face.
“No,” she said quietly and with a frost just around the edges. It was enough to make him stop thrashing around for a moment and stare at her face.
“I’m past tired of listening to you talk,” she again said softly. “I just want you take this in before that square of darkness overtakes what’s left of your vision and you never see anything again. Your ridiculous life amounted to nothing.”
There was only enough strength in him to make a lame swipe at her straining hands before his gaze looked up over her shoulder, fixed on something and then faded. There was no moment of recognition, no last look of fear, there was just the extinguishing of some indefinable light.