Fun with Frank

A running, first draft only, write-yourself-into-and-out-of-a-corner kind of serial story.

Friday, November 24, 2006

80...

When the Malibu had rounded a curve to the east and was out of sight, Alexis removed her face from Matthew's with a grimace. She pulled her hands away and wiped them on herself. Matthew's body slid down the side of the car and fell to the gravel on the side of the road with a boneless thump. Alexis let fly a kick into his ribs.
"Fucker," she said, her mouth all teeth. She moved her tongue around her mouth, collecting saliva in a pile like a broom pulling dust and detritus. She let fly a wad of spit which landed somewhere in Matthew's hair.
She glared over the roof of the Cadillac, her eyes like sparking wires, turning her head left and right in slow, sweeping gestures. No other automobiles were making their appearance.
Man, she wanted another cigarette. This was however not the time for it. She looked down at Matthew’s body on the side of the road. She was breathing hard. Matthew lay in a slump, like a rag doll that had been tossed aside by a petulant girl.
Alexis let out a short bark of a laugh.
Taking a deep breath, Alexis reached down and grabbed hold of Matthew’s belt once again and fastening with a reserve strength she was unaware that she still had, she pulled his body around to the back of the car in one long slide.
She dropped him, none too carefully, and once again looked around the deserted canyon road. She propped open the trunk, the lid of which had succumbed to gravity and drifted slowly down. Her hands were bathed in the trunk’s pale yellow light, a color which made her think of insects. She could see scars, she could see swatches of blood and road dirt, she could see a small tremor starting that would eventually devour her entire body. She curled her large but womanly hands into tight fists.
Alexis let her head drop and her eyes close. She controlled her breathing to a slow, regulated pace. She wore a grimace on her face. She looked like a boxer in a corner, attempting to decide on a reason to enter the match.
She shot her face up, eyes open, and let out a sharp breath of air. She kneeled down beside Matthew one hand under his neck and the other under his thighs. Shaking with strain, she lifted him like a groom stealing a bride over the threshold. With an animal grunt, she dropped his body into the trunk. It landed inside just fine, except for his head which lolled onto the lip where the trunk lid connected with the back of the car.
With a devious smile that she shared for no one, that was hers alone, she brought the trunk down on his head with an almost playful slam. There was a comic ‘thonk’ sound as the lid connected and bounced back up.
“Bitch,” she said.
Alexis grabbed the head by the hair and shoved it fully into the trunk. She once again brought down the lid which managed to latch and close without hindrance. She finally pulled out another cigarette and lit it.
Alexis leaned against the trunk of the Cadillac, mostly hidden the shadows of the canyon walls except when a blaze of red from the tip of her cigarette ignited the passive look on her face. She cocked one foot up on the bumper, let her head fall back and blew smoke up towards the sky.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

79...

The headlights were growing in size, beginning to play their illumination over the driver's side of the car, beginning to shine dully on Alexis' face facing Matthew's face. She sighed heavily.
"Of course."
She looked Matthew in the face, those growing headlights beginning to bring more definition to the glistening hole of his left eye. She held firm on his body pushing it against the passenger side of the car with her hands and with the weight of her own body. She cocked her head, put on her best flirting smile and looked into his blank face.
"Oh Matthew, you say the sweetest things," she said and laughed lightly, part for show and part because she was cracking herself up.
The headlights were intense to the point of hurting her eyes, which had adjusted themselves to the darkness. Matthew's face was washed of all color, the blank look and loose hanging jaw made him look somewhat bewildered. She could hear an engine that obviously needed some work that was a tad louder than it should have been.
Alexis ran her hand down his side and felt a tackiness where he had stuck himself with his own knife.
"Matthew," she said with a smile and small giggle. "You're so silly."
She could hear the pressure come off the engine a tad, as though the driver had taken their foot off of the accelerator.
The flirtatious smile never left her face. Alexis took a deep breath, held it, and pushed her face against Matthew's. She pushed her lips against his upper one. Matthews hanging jaw placed his bottom lip on her chin. Alexis closed her eyes and thought of anything else; of the trip to Yellowstone she took as child on the way to Michigan, of butterflies, of eating popcorn at the movies.
She listened to the car approaching. She could tell it was slowing down, she just wasn't sure what she was dealing with here, a do-gooder or worse. She wished that she had thought to have taken Matthews knife out of the car with her.
Alexis tried not to think about how deep the knife wound she currently had her hand covering actually was. She tried not to think about how she had a dead lip between her own in a stage kiss, about how that lip was already cooling.
The car was upon them, she could hear it on the other side of the Cadillac, moving at what was probably about 15 miles an hour. A normal person wouldn't pull over, seeing what must look like a couple making out, would they? Maybe this was a cop. Alexis could feel her heart beating heavy, she could feel a dizziness coming over her. She was trying to think of what was going to be her next move if a cop pulled over and approached. The car crawled by, tortuously slow.
A howling wolf call filled the surrounding canyon. "Do it!" some male voice called out.
Alexis opened her left eye, and gazing past the staring dead eye of Matthew in the foreground saw what looked like a Chevy Malibu with the leering faces of two teenage boys looking at them lasciviously through open windows. The car finally sped up and moved along.