89...

Alexis flicked yet another butt out the window of the Cadillac. She moved her head as though she was following the falling arc of the glowing smoke, but she was carefully looking around the parking lot once again. Two cars still remained, but there didn't appear to be anyone in them. She figured that this was the time.
She got out of the car, her knees popping. There was a tense moment when a quick sneaking head rush made her think that she might actually lose the strength to stand, but she closed her eyes and took a slow and deep breath of the salt rimed air. She mock stretched and again scoped the parking lot and the beach just beyond. No one appeared to be too close, still those bonfires a good distance away.
Walking slowly, but not too slowly, around to the back of the Cadillac, Alexis opened the trunk and looked down at the shadowed shape of Matthew's body, lying curled as if in sleep. Somehow, the trunk light had begun to short and it now blinked on and off intermittently. A flash of yellow and there was the sepia toned photograph of violence and a moment of banal evil. A restoration of moon spattered darkness and the calm feeling of smooth night sleeping
She reached behind the corpse and felt around for the sleeping bag. She felt it, grabbed it, and as she brought it forward the trunk flashed again. She caught the staring, dead eye out of the corner of her own and clenched her jaw. She unrolled the bag and began putting it over Matthew's still feet. She lifted his legs up and continued pulling the bag over up to his waist. Continuing to lift the body and pulling the bag, Alexis had him wrapped in about ten minutes. Just as she was pulling the open hole of the sleeping bag over his lolling head, the trunk flashed alight again, just in time to clearly show a scruff of hair disappearing into the dark hole of the bag.
She reached around the filled bag, prying her fingers underneath, and once again stealing herself against the strain, she pulled the impromptu body bag out of the trunk and let it fall to the parking lot's asphalt with a muffled thump. Without looking, she reached up and slammed the trunk closed.
Bending down slowly, and tunelessly humming the theme to TV's "One In The Hand", Alexis wrapped the roll straps around her hands, two or three times and began pulling.
The nylon shell of the bag whispered demonic threats as it dragged along the asphalt. She got it to the lip of the parking lot where the tarmac ended and the slight slope of the beach began and dropped the bag. She hunched over, breathing heavily and flexing her hands over her slightly bent knees. She glared down on the lump at her feet and blew a sigh through her nostrils. Alexis stood up straight and forcefully kicked the bag over the lip of the parking lot. It hit the graceful slope of California giving way to the Pacific and managed to roll a good six feet.
"Better'n nothin'," she sighed before following the bag and body down onto the beach.

88...

“And what’s keeping you from making the decision?” Alexis asked.
“Well,” Frank began, his eyes narrowed to near sleeping slits and his voice taking on the timbre of a dusty professor. “It’s a long, cold walk home.”
“Did you want company?”
“Are you volunteering?” He barely got that last word out, and his eyes remained closed to slits.
Alexis shrugged her shoulders suggestively.
“I get the feeling that you would lead me to a bad, bad place,” Frank said with a dry chuckle.
“You’re possibly right.”
“I also,” he let his head roll back and took another drag from the nearly done cigarette. “I also have to pee really bad, and that last time I tried that on foot, in this kind of condition, I ended up with a very wet shirt.”
“Charming.”
“Sorry.”
He went to take another hit off of the cigarette, and realizing it was at its end, threw it to the ground with frustration. Alexis reached into the small purse hanging off of her shoulder, pushed past the freshly purchased bottle of hair dye, and grabbed her pack of cigarettes. She opened the box and offered one to Frank.
Frank looked at the choice of cigarettes before him and once again swayed as if his own personal tropical storm were blowing him about. He looked into her eyes, as best he could with his own narrowed so close to closed, and laughed. He plucked a cigarette out of its crowd of brethren and placed it, eventually, into his mouth.
“We have not officially met,” Frank said around his newly gained, unlit cigarette.
“No we have not.”
Frank stuck out his hand. “Frank,” he said, as if he were slightly embarrassed in saying it.
Alexis smiled demurely, took his hand and curtsied slightly. “Alexis.”
“It is truly a pleasure,” he said.
Alexis reached back into her purse and grabbed her lighter. She lit his smoke and one for herself.
“Can I be honest with you Alexis?” he asked.
“Sure,” she smiled through a cloud of exhaled smoke.
“If I were to meet you again, I may not remember it. Part of it would certainly be that I’m fucking drunk as drunk, but a larger part would be this sick shield I carry around. I would convince myself we had not met so that I would not be hurt when someone as beautiful as you didn’t remember me.”
“Wow, I’m unsure how to reply to that.”
“Just take it easy on me when we see each other again.” He pointed his cigarette towards the road that would take him home, and began to move his feet to follow his hand’s lead. “And I hope it’s soon Alexis.”
“Did you want company for that walk?”
“Naw,” he turned his head back towards her. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Have a great night.”
Alexis leaned against that stairs and watched him stagger away. Just as he was rounding a corner and moving out of sight, she was finishing her cigarette.